Yu-gi-oh Time Loops: Arc-V edition!
by CeleneTheAngel
Summary: Another addition to the infinite loops project! Join our favorite fruit-color-haired characters as they are put through a series of never-ending time loops!
1. Chapter 1

**So, I desperately wanted to get this out before the manga ended in June and the Arc-v era came to an end.**

**Perhaps, as a result of that, this is a shorter chapter than what you'd see for most loop stories, but I digress.**

**This story was heavily inspired by Saphroneth's MLP Loops, Kamen Rider Leonite's Yugioh Infinite Loops, as well as the Infinite Loops originally conceived by Innortal. It will also follow the established rules for stories in the infinite loops project. (details on On the bottom of you need it)**

**And there may be allusions to Leonite's story, as the tenth chapter is dedicated to Arc-V.**

**You can expect the official wikia to be updated by the time this is posted.**

**Oh, and some of these won't be in chronological order.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

1.1

Yuzu's nowhere nearby?" Yuto asked cautiously, glancing around.

"I made sure she wouldn't be anywhere near here, but let's make this quick just in case."

Yuto nodded. Yuzu tended to show up before the set time they fused, no matter what, and then they'd be forced apart and unable to talk again for awhile.

"Alright. Time has been rewinding over and over again, yet recently a lot of things have been different. As if _someone else_ was also remembering everything when time started rewinding and has been altering the course of events... Is it you?

While he had been explaining his suspicions, Yuya's eyes had widened. To Yuto's question, he had immediately answered "Yeah, I've been doing some stuff differently to keep myself amused. So that means...time's resetting for you too?"

Yuto nodded again, grimacing slightly as he internally pondered why this was happening.

Seeing him upset, Yuya said "Well, hey. No matter why this is happening, it's nice to know we won't be going through it alone." He comforted with a smile, putting a hand on Yuto's shoulder.

Yuto gave a small smile back.

It was at that moment that Yuzu ran in, her bracelet immediately glowing a bright pink and Yuto was teleported away. Though they were both so used to it happening at this point, that Yuya just waved, silently promising they'd talk more later.

* * *

1.2

_Y'know, it's a shame no one else remembers the repeats._ Yuto idly commented, watching the duel currently going on through Yuya.

_Yeah. It'd be fun to see everyone else's reaction to the name changing ones_.

He'd let Declan take the first turn.

"Using the ability of my D/D swirl slime, I will fuse it with D/D Berfomet.

I Fusion Summon!

D/D/D Flame King Genghis!"

_One down_. Yuya mentally noted.

"I summon the tuner monster, D/D Nighthowl. And with its ability, bring back D/D Berfomet with its attack points lowered to zero.

Now I tune Level 3 D/D Nighthowl with Level 4 D/D Berfomet!

I Synchro Summon!

D/D/D Gust King Alexander!"

_One more to go_.

"When I summon another D/D/D monster, Flame King Genghis resurrects a D/D monster from my graveyard.

Arise once again D/D swirl slime.

And Gust King Alexander's ability activates!

Whenever a D/D monster is summoned, Gust King can revive another D/D monster from the graveyard!

D/D Berfomet, return to the field of battle!

And now Berfomet's ability activates, doubling the level of my swirl slime to four!

With that I take my swirl slime and Berfomet and build the overlay network!

I Xyz Summon!

D/D/D Wave King Caesar!

And with that, Declan had his Fusion, Synchro and Xyz monsters out on the field. His smirk, though well concealed, was triumphant.

"I end my turn." He then did that badass thing where he pushes his glasses up. "Good luck getting past this, Yuya Sakaki."

This would have _technically_ been the first time he saw Declan duel, as Yuto knew better than to attack Sawatari. So he'd pretended to be in awe and hiding panic. "I draw" Yuya called, grinning at the card he got. This was the moment he'd been waiting for.

_So what made you finally decide to hide pendulum summoning anyway?_ Yuto asked.

"I set the pendulum scale with Scale 4 Performapal Trump Witch, and Scale 8 Xiangsheng Magician." He called, the pendulum zones appearing as everyone's eyes bulged out of their skulls.

"I'm taking control of this duel starting now!"

It wasn't what he would normally say, but it seemed to fit better.

"Swing far, Pendulum. Carve the Arc of victory!

My monsters are ready to swing into action!"

"WHAT?" Was the collective opinion as he pendulum summoned the monsters in his hand, grin wide.

He then proceeded to whoop an entirely unprepared and thoroughly shocked Declan.

Payback was sweet~!

"_T_o_ see the look on Reiji's face_!"

* * *

1.3

"Hey, Yuto?"

"Yeah Shun?"

"Where's my dueldisk?"

"...You..._lost_ your dueldisk!?" Yuto asked, feigning bewilderment and internally rolling his eyes while smirking.

"No!" Shun yelled indignantly. "It was right next to me before I went to sleep, now it's gone! All I found was my deck!"

"It's gotta be in this warehouse. I'll help you look..." He was still trying not to chuckle. The cryptic message Yuya gave him earlier suddenly made sense.

~0~ Earlier...

_"Hey Yuto?"_

_"Yeah Yuya?" Yuto grumbled, trying to go back to sleep._

_"...If you hear someone coming into the warehouse, it's just me."_

_"Alright Yuya that's...Wait, What?! Why are you coming over here?"_

_"Trust me on this. I'll explain at the battle royale._

_"Okay..?"_

_"Oh yeah! And uh...try not to let Shun go crazy."_

~0~

"Have you checked around that couch?"

"And underneath it, and on the ledge above it!" Shun said, starting to panic slightly.

Yuto blinked. "Why would you think it'd be up there..."

Their conversation became indiscernable as Yuya walked away, a purple duel disk folded up and tucked in his loop pocket as he sprinted off.

But he was certain that had he had looked back, he would have seen Yuto having an extraordinarily hard time trying to keep a straight face in front of a panicking Shun.

* * *

1.4

"Now, tell me what the hell is going on!" Hugo shouted.

Utē(Yuto) had smirked and replied, "Only if you beat me in a duel, pawn of fusion."

Evidently, that had not been the right thing to say, as Hugo had gotten even angrier and yelled "**It's HUGO! Not FUSION! Why does everyone keep calling me that!**"

This was another of those name-changed loops Asuka had told him about. Though both Yuto's and Yugo's names were still pronounced the same way, (at least for Japanese speakers), they were just spelled differently.

"Clear Wing, attack!" Hugo shouted.

"Dark Rebellion!" Utē yelled back, gesturing for his Dragon to meet Hugo's.

Yuya sat casually on a park bench, watching the duel. Utē had been adamant about him not intervening. This loop, he'd planned to get revenge on the pawn of fusion for kidnapping Ruri every other loop. And the guy's name was apparently Hugo.

_Hmm..._ Yuya pondered. _That **does** does sound close to the Japanese word for fusion..._

_Pawn of fusion..._

Wait...

"Whirlwind Helldive Slasher!" Hugo shouted.

"Revolt of Lightning Disobey!" Utē also shouted.

Ah, whatever. He'd kept those thoughts to himself so as to not distract Yuto. He'd tell them when they were done.

Yuya glanced up at the nearby camera that had short-circuited, and took note how it slowly came back online.

An amused smile appeared on his face as he waved to the now online camera.

Utē and Hugo were pretty evenly matched. Even without the loops(at least to their knowledge), Hugo was a pretty good duelist.

Then Utē started whipping out the cards from his combined deck that he got in that one weird variant loop.

Yuya then pulled out the popcorn he'd brought in anticipation for the slaughter.

~0~

"Yuto!" Shun yelled in recognition. Then he noticed the two other people also at the scene.

Across from Yuto, was a blue and yellow-haired guy standing by a very weird motorcycle. A closer look at his face showed that, except for the hair and eyes and clothes, he looked exactly like Yuto!

And sitting on a nearby bench, was a red and green haired boy with goggles perched on his head. One of his legs was crossed, and he sat there, watching the duel between Yuto and that other guy, seemingly amused and making no moves to stop it.

"Who's- -?" A closer look revealed that just like the other guy, except for the hair and eyes, he looked like Yuto too!

"Akaba, what's going on?" Shun demanded.

Reiji frowned. "I don't know who the motorcyclist is, but the boy on the bench is Yuya Sakaki." His eyes darted between the three. "They all have the same face. What could it mean..?" And why wasn't Yuya doing anything?

"Is he eating popcorn?!" Shun screeched. And sure enough, when Reiji checked, Yuya Sakaki was still sitting there casually, but now he had a bag of popcorn in his arms.

Then, out of nowhere, there was a big explosion of light and the cameras short circuited again.

"Get those cameras back online!" Reiji called to everyone in the room. And they began furiously typing, wordlessly following his orders.

"What the heck is going on?" Shun asked to himself, eyes wide and still staring at the blank screen.

Reiji rubbed his temples. He had long since wondered that himself.

* * *

1.5

Noboru Gongenzaka, At the request of his friends, had been waiting outside. But that had been quite awhile ago, so it was understandable that he went to check on his friends and make sure nothing was amiss.

What he had not expected to find,

Was the two of them deep in a kiss.

The creak of the door opening alerted them to his presence, and they both pulled away, faces flushed a deep red not far off from the shade of Yuya's hair.

An awkward silence filled the room.

Gong was the one to break it.

"I...the man Gongenzaka, apologize for interrupting. I will be waiting outside." And the door closed again.

The room was silent even after he left, as both teens just realized what they did, Yuya especially.

If possible, Yuya's face flushed deeper as he stammered "O-oh... I'm- - I'm so sorry! I-I-I don't know what came over me-I..." She cut him off with another kiss.

This one, though shorter, got the message across.

Yuya cleared his throat. "S-so...does this mean we're..." He trailed off.

She gave a shy smile. "I-If you wanna be..."

Though Yuya couldn't help but immediately backpedal. "Isn't this too soon? I mean... we're only...like, 14... "

Yuzu stared him in the eyes, an eyebrow raised, then giggled slightly. Yuya realized what he just said, and blushed. "Oh...right."

Yuzu giggled again and said, "I love you Yuya."

His eyes got a little watery. "I...I love you too Yuzu, and I'm sorry it took time looping for me to realize it."

She rested her head on his chest, his hand came up on her back, holding her to him, both just happy to be together.

* * *

1.6

He sat next to Serena, and Yuzu, staring at the open sky full of stars the night before they were supposed to set off as Lancers. Yuzu had agreed to let them stay at her house for the night, Yugo and Yuto were all off doing their own thing, and hopefully Yuto was apologizing for associating Yugo with Academia all.

"The loop ends tomorrow, huh?" Serena said, an eyebrow raised. She hadn't fully understand what was going on with these... _Loops._ So Yuya had explained it to her.

"Yep," Yuya nodded, popping the P.

"It's really short." She noted. "Only a month or two."

"It is" He agreed. "Though me and Yuto once managed to drag it out for another half a month. The loop ending times can vary. According to Asuka a, some of the Yugioh Loops don't have set-in-stone stop points. Rather they end when you hit certain events. Like the Lancers going to the Synchro dimension.

Serena hummed in thought. "So you and Yuto managed to make the loop last longer by delaying Reiji's plan?"

"Yep. We got them to postpone the tournament for a couple of weeks" He confirmed.

"And how'd you do that?" She inquired.

"Weeeell...I may have blown up the stadium..."

She stared at him. "Seriously?!"

"Yep" He said, popping the P again.

"How did you even get away with that?!"

Yuya smirked at her. "Yuto snuck inside and made it look like the real solid vision malfunctioned. It was my idea."

She chuckled, but wondered how he'd thought of that. At that moment, Yuzu's eyes blinked open and she woke up, yawning.

"Is it morning yet?" she asked, still drowsy.

Yuya offered a gentle smile and said in a soothing voice, "It's the middle of the night Yuzu. Go back to sleep. We'll wake you up in the morning." And the pink-haired girl complied, curling up next to him.

Before he realized what he was doing, he had brushed his hand through her hair, which was down. When he noticed what he'd just done, he immediately retracted his hand.

Serena was eyeing him the whole time.

"You...really care about her, huh?"

"Yeah...Yuzu's my everything..." he realized, going back to staring up at the sky.

They sat in silence for a moment before Serena broke it by saying, "Does she know that?"

Yuya had to really think about it for a moment. He never realized how many times he found himself being overprotective of her, of how many times he'd find himself jumping through hoop after hoop to ensure nothing bad ever happened to her, even when she was looping and could definitely take care of herself.

"I...don't think she does." He said. "Honestly, _I_ wasn't even sure until now."

Serena nodded. "Well, I may not know much about this kind of stuff, but I do know that if you like someone, you should tell them." She said. And she made it sound so simple. Maybe it _w__as_ just that simple.

"You're right, Serena." He said, tucking Yuzu in. "I'll tell her the next time we're both awake."

Serena yawned and curled up in the sleeping bag Yuzu had given her. Yuya bid her goodbye, and left.

As she drifted off, she had a smile on her face.

Somewhere off In Yggdrasil, the admin Fand ticked a box off in her shipping pair book.

* * *

**Welcome everyone to the latest entry in the infinite loops project! I hope you liked it.**

Loop rules:

These time loops use the system established by Innortal who has written time loops for Naruto, Bleach, Ranma and Harry Potter amongst others, and then been further developed in Saphroneth's loop stories. The following info is integral for understanding the loops.

The Anchor is the first looper to start looping. They're also awake for every single loop, and more often than not, are the main character. At first they'll be by themselves, but as time goes on more people are added to the loops, becoming "awake" for some loops.

There will always be at least one anchor in every loop, though it may not be the local one.

Sometimes a loop will have more than one anchor, as is the case for the first series, Zexal, Arc-V and VRAINS.

A loop itself usually goes from when something important first happens and ends either upon death or other forms of demise or after a certain amount of time. (The Amount of time it lasts varies between branches)

When someone does something that breaks the world and forces a new loop, they crash the loop and can end up with them looping in someone else's time loop. This is called a Fused Loop. The worse the breakage, the more likely the universe will make the loop something horrible for the loopers as punishment, also known as a punishment loop.

Fused loops can also happen at random, or because an admin allows it.

Along with that are Variant loops, which are altered versions of the baseline.

And the baseline of a loop is like...what _normally_ happens, (without variant or fused loops, or intervention by the loopers.)

Each of the individual Yugioh series is its own separate set of time loops. Each of the main boys (and partners, if they have them) are the anchors for each series respectively. The only difference is that it's easier to force a crossover between the series loops

This story will primarily focus on Arc-V, and perhaps VRAINS, later on.

Arc-V loop rules:

Cut off point is just after activating Cross Over for Yuya and Co, the morning after escaping security for Yugo and Yuzu/Zuzu (Though that is going to change soon).

Starting loopers are Yuya and Yuto (Soulbound co-anchors), with Yugo and Yuzu/Zuzu and Serena/Selena active as of some of these loops.

Leonite had Shun looping in his Arc-V chapter, but I'm not going to show him looping for now. As for when I'll actively proclaim him a looper in my story, well, we'll see.

~0~

I've seen other loop stories do this, so here:

1.1:

Yes, Yuzu showing up before the set point is kinda...predetermined (at least until she and a certain other person start looping(You're welcome to guess who and why))

1.2:

Prepare to see switches between the sub and the dub.

And you gotta admit, Reiji _was_ a bit of a jerk in season one, even if for the right reasons... and even if he _is_ a certified badass.

1.3:

Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this one...

1.4:

It's about time they sorted that out. And at this point Yugo **_is_** looping.

1.5:

Come one, you all know you wanted to see it happen. And at this point Yuzu has also started to loop.

1.6

Its a loop or two before 1.5. (Remember, theses are NOT in order.). Serena's looping and yeah, their loop is pretty short, but not for much longer.

Honestly, I'm not sure where I was going with this one, especially. I was writing it at 11:50 on and wasn't really thinking straight.

Note: We have at least one looper from every dimension, which is good for stabilization.

**Yes, kind of short, and a lot of loopers added in this one chapter. I don't think that's normal for a lot of loop stories but Arc-V has long since been done, so I'm trying to speed this along.**

**See you in the next chapter!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Unknowed\- **Well, they have to actually get up to that point first. But I plan on doing something...different, with Zarc.

**Maidengale4evermore\- **Deary (And that name is beautiful by the way), I think what you meant was time travel. And clearly, you have never read Timegazer by driftingstar, an amazing(if unfinished) example of a time travel story. You're right though, we really need more of 'em.

(And I make no promises on any shipping. Romance isn't _really_ my thing...)

**Above the Winter**** Moonlight**-...well, that depends. I mean, have you _seen_ post-reset Yuri? They didn't even bother to show his redemption in that widely disliked ending to the show. He just did a complete 180 in the span of 0 seconds from the viewers perspective. So I can't answer you for certain whether or not he'd be the kind to "destroy things." But I certainly don't plan to make him an MLE.

**And if anyone has any requests, ideas, or even offers of help, please contact me. I'm gonna start running out of ideas soon... **

**Typically, loops stories are done with the help of people on the spacebattles forum, but I don't use that so I'm going to have to start relying on my readers, reviewers and contacts on this site.**

**Basically anything you can think of and suggest will likely be accepted more. (That's what variants and fused loops are for)**

**And If you need to know anything about the infinite loops, either ask me and I'll do my best to answer, go read another loop story (most of them go by the same or similar rules), or look it up. The Infinite loops has its own wiki page with everything you need to know(some of it recently edited by moi)**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

2.1

"Yuzu, if you want to throw it away, then just do it." Yuya said. He'd been sitting there for several minutes as Yuzu finally took the bracelet off.

Then she was holding it in her hand, her arm poised above her head to throw it,

but she was trembling, and gritting her teeth. Her arm shook, as if she was struggling to move it.

And he could've sworn the pink stones on the bracelet were giving off a soft glow as she struggled, but that could've just been the light reflecting off it.

"I'm...trying..." Came the gritted out reply. Finally her arm fell, the bracelet still in hand as she let out a breath, panting.

"It's...It's like something is physically...or mentally stopping me from throwing the bracelet away."

Yuya frowned, his head cocked. "That's...odd..." Yuzu nodded in agreement. "I'm pretty sure I saw it glowing too." He added.

Yuzu fell into a sitting position. "What's going on..?" She questioned to herself, stressed. This was the second loop she'd tried to throw it away so Yuya and Yuto and Yugo and her could all talk without anyone being teleported to who knows where. Being teleported just once had shown it was a somewhat taxing and annoying experience that felt you were being forcefully shoved through a too-tight pipe.

"Well..." Yuya said, sitting down next to her looking thoughtful. "I'm sure we'll find out soon." He offered. "Until then, maybe you should just keep it in your subspace pocket."

Yuzu sighed. "I've already tried that, but my subspace pocket isn't very big yet, I barely have enough room for my deck in there!"

Yuya shrugged. "If you want, you can just give it to me at the beginning of every loop until your pocket's big enough."

Yuzu hummed. "I think I'll take you up on that." And she made to hand the pink-jeweled piece of jewelry over.

Though she paused for a moment, an immediate sense of wrongness erupting in her core. But she pushed through it and dropped the bracelet in Yuya's hand. His arm hovered over air which she was pretty sure was his subspace pocket.

Just as he let it go, it flashed,

and reappeared on her arm.

Yuzu yelped as the cold metal met her wrist with a soft *thump*.

Yuya was staring at her, wide-eyed. "What..?" He croaked, confused and bewildered. Yuzu met his eyes, the same confusion and bewilderment in her orbs.

An idea occurred to Yuya. "Hey, Yuzu, your bracelet wouldn't happen to be soul-bound, would it?"

She blinked. "...What?" She asked with a growing sense of confusion.

"I forgot where I heard his, but I think... if an object is soul-bound you can summon it to you, even when the loop ends. And without having to put it in your subspace pocket."

Yuzu's eyes widened. "That's a thing?" She was still relatively new to the loops, at least compared to Yuya and Yuto. And even then, their loop was one of the newest to start looping after...billions of years of it already happening to the multiverse. They were tiny drops in a huge ocean. Or...the newly sprouted buds of branches in a huge tree.

"Yeah, soul-binding objects is a thing some loopers can get done. It's something a lot of the older loopers do to keep important objects close to them. And it's literally impossible to lose a soul-bound object."

He pointed to the bracelet that sat on her wrist again, despite the fact that was supposed to be impossible.

"If your bracelet is soul-bound, all it would take would be a slight force of will to get it back to you."

"But- -but... I didn't want it back! I want to get rid of the thing!" She insisted.

Yuya glanced at her for a moment before shrugging. "I don't know Yuzu." He shook his head and leaned back against the wall, hands cushioning

"...Maybe our loop has an unspoken rule about not throwing away wristwear." He joked. Yuzu cracked a small smile.

But it didn't last long. "The loop just doesn't go far enough for us to get any big hints about what's going on..." She said in a sad tone of voice, staring at the pink-stoned piece of jewelry on her wrist.

All of sudden, Yuya snapped his fingers before exclaiming, "I almost forgot! Our admin recently told me and Yuto that we'll be getting an extension to our loop. I'm sure all our questions will be answered then."

A tick mark appeared on the side of Yuzu's forehead, and the Fan Of Doom slid into her hand. "HOW COULD YOU ALMOST FORGET SOMETHING SO IMPORTANT?!" She screeched.

Yuya's eyes widened in fright as he started inching backwards towards the door that led out of the room, hands up to protect his face from her impending wrath and brutal swackings.(Even after all this time, the Fan of Doom still scared the crap outta him)

Then Yuzu calmed down as she blinked, recalling something else and wondering if she heard that right. "Our? I'm not the only one having weird stuff happen to me?"

He shook his head. "Nope." He affirmed, popping the 'p', ever so grateful that she stopped. "Me and Yuto were having similar troubles with Odd-Eyes and Dark Rebellion. That and, well, something weird happened recently."

"What was that?"

Yuya tilted his head considering. "Well, I pulled Odd-eyes out of my deck, and the card started glowing."

"Glowing?" Yuzu asked, brow raised and wondering if the similarities between their situations was a coincidence.

"Yeah. I was staring at it, and then I was seeing something else."

Yuzu's eyes widened. "What were you seeing?"

"I-I think I was seeing the world through Yuto... But there was another incident like that, except I was duelling someone in a room with an open door, facing a bunch of hallways. That ended pretty quickly though. I'm not sure who I was seeing through for that one..."

Yuzu's mouth appeared to prop open before she composed herself and spoke.

"For one of my first loops, I was taking Ruri's place in the Xyz Dimension..."

"Oh, that nutsy 'Yu' loop. Yeah, Yuto told me about that. Me, Yuto and Yugo all got a whole bunch of new cards from that one."

"..Well, I was in this strange...temple-like structure... That's where I dueled Sora, and sometime during...or was it _after_ the duel, I was standing before three other girls, and we all had the same face...Then everything just kind of blacked out until the end where I woke up in Standard with a modified deck."

Yuya thought about that for a moment. "That sounds an awful lot like before me and Yuto fused in baseline, he and Yugo's eyes started glowing and they went into a mindless rage." Yuya hummed. "Actually, I think it's called 'Berserk mode.'" He said. "Afterwards, both told me that they couldn't remember anything about that time. That sound about right?"

Yuzu nodded with a worried look on her face. "Yuto did seem really worried about me the loop after. I asked him why he was keeping such a close eye on me, and he said it was because of something that happened in an earlier loop, and he was making sure it wouldn't happen again. It might have been that... Berserk mode you just mentioned."

"Alright, so we can both go into that. Has it happened again afterwards?"

Yuzu nodded "no". "I think it was a one-time thing."

Yuya looked relieved and muttered "_thank goodness_." Then he shook his head. "Anyway, there's me, Yuto, Yugo, and that fourth guy that supposedly is the one that was capturing the bracelet girls. In other words, there's four of us, one for each dimension."

Yuzu's eyes widened as she realized what he was getting at. "Including myself, there were three other girls who looked like me. One for each dimension..."

"Exactly. And we're all connected in some way. And according to Mieru, there's some kind of darkness in our hearts that send us into a mindless rage in emotionally stressful situations.

...What could it mean..?" She wondered aloud, a little scared to see what their loop had to offer.

Seeing her slight fear, Yuya brought her in for a hug, which she gladly reciprocated.

"Hey, it'll be alright." He comforted. "No matter what our loop throws at us, me and Yuto will be here. And I'm willing to bet everyone else will be looping for it too. You won't be alone."

That comforted Yuzu, and she calmed down, still wrapped in Yuya's embrace.

"_We_ _**won't** be alone._"

* * *

2.2

Yuya started his loop walking. But not expecting it, he stumbled and fell. After the last loop, he was pretty tired. And the grass was so soft...he wanted to lie in it forever...

Then the loops memories started to settle in.

He was Yuden, a prince of the Kingdom of Albernia. Seventh in line to the throne. And apparently, almost all of his other siblings were jerks. His twin, Zethia, stood out as the only truly genuine and kind one, helping him countless times along with their childhood friend, the fairy, Notte.

So apparently, he was currently in the Windwrym's woods to form a ... dragonpact. The Dragon Selection Trial, a (sometimes)coming-of-age-ceremony-thing that decided whether you were to rule, based on whether or not you managed to find and forge a dragonpact with a dragon. He was doing this, even though he previously had no desire to rule. But the shard of a magic artifact that protected their kingdom from fiends was fast fading, and by undertaking the trial, he would be able to move one of the other shards into the kingdom.

Well...he had no aversion to letting the loop play out normally. But that meant he had to continue trekking through these woods.

Even though they were apparently filled with monsters and all manner of fiends.

And the fact he'd asked his wizard-healer of a sister and spunky fairy friend to stay behind, and was all on his own.

And all he had to fight the monsters off with was a small sword strapped to his hip. ...Well, the loop memories and and his newly developed skills in the last loop, the RWBY loop, could help him with that, at least.

As Yuden was walking through the forest, still reviewing the loop memories, he came upon a couple of monsters. Midnight purple fiends that stared at him with beady eyes.

One charged a ball of dark purple energy(Which apparently wasn't normal), and shot it at him. Luckily, he was rather agile, and so slid to the left, as the attack passed over his head.

He lunged for the second fiend, which had yet to fire, and swung his sword through it. The first one backed away with a hiss, firing off another blast of dark purple magic at him that he wouldn't be able to dodge, but a shot of golden light hit the monster, and the attack dissipated in midair.

"Brother!" A blonde, decorated young woman yelled, running towards him with nothing short of relief written on her face. A small pink-haired fairy dressed in green flitted next to her.

"What are you two doing here? I told you to wait at the castle!" Yuden reprimanded, as seemed befitting of the person he was replacing.

"You shouldn't try to do this alone. Let us help you!" The young woman- -Zethia, his sister, all but pleaded. "We agreed on this. No matter how trying the ordeal, the three of us agreed we must face it together."

Yuden gave them a smile, immediately conceding. "You're right. I was overconfident. And there's no denying I could use the help. Thank you, both of you. Now let's move out. Our goal is just ahead."

Zethia gave a grateful smile, and seemed overjoyed that he'd let them help. The fairy though, looked at him apprehensively. "Zethia?" She asked in a high-pitched voice. "Could you give us a moment?"

Confusion swirled in Zethia's eyes. "Is something wrong Notte?"

"No, No! of course not!" the fairy answered. "I just have to talk to ...Yuden...about something. We'll only be a minute."

"Oh. Alright." Zethia complied, stepping off to the side to let them talk.

The fairy turned to him. "Hey, I'm feeling rather loopy and need something to anchor myself."

Yuden's eyes widened. "Yes, I'm a looper." He answered. "Are you the local anchor?"

The fairy's face broke into an easygoing smile. "Well, no. You're taking the place of my anchor, Euden. This loop is affectionately referred to as Dragalia Lost.

I'm guessing Yuden isn't your real name?" 'Yuden' nodded. "Okay, what is it then? I'm sure you'd rather be referred to as that."

'Yuden' nodded again and gave a brief smile. "My name is Yuya Sakaki. I'm one of two anchors for the Yugioh Arc-V Loop."

Notte gestured to an un-looping Zethia to follow as they started walking. She'd flown around earlier to ensure there were less fiends. That way they'd be able to focus on talking.

"Yugioh huh? I've heard of that one...It's... the one based around that _Card game,_ duel monsters_,_ right?" Yuya nodded with a big smile on his face. "Got it in one."

"Doesn't that get boring?"

"No, not really. In my time, the game was so overly complicated, that it probably won't get boring for awhile. Though it'd be confusing for newcomers to learn.

Not to mention we recently got a pretty big expansion to our loop."

"An expansion?"

Yuya nodded and started to explain. "When we started looping, our loop only went up to a certain event, then it stopped. But apparently, there was a lot of stuff after that. And we just got some of that unlocked."

Notte still seemed slightly confused, but also seemed to be starting to get it. "If I'm understanding you right, then we haven't gotten any of those here."

"Hmm...alright. It's like...if you could split Arc-V into four parts that we could access, we're currently able to access three out of four of those parts."

"Alright, I think I get it. And you have a co-anchor?"

"Yup! His name's Yuto. I'm actually not sure where he is right now..."

Notte considered that. "You aren't the first Yu-Gi-Oh visitor we've had, and I've noticed there's a thing about peoples names starting with 'Yu'."

"Yeah, the majority of the anchors have names starting with 'Yu'. Speaking of, one variant loop took that 'Yu' thing and blew it up to _crazy_ proportions."

Notte cocked her head.

"Okay, so, it's an unspoken rule in the Yu-gi-oh loops that anyone who's name starts with 'Yu' has a lot of stuff happen to them that usually ends up with them saving the world, sometimes multiple times. And to rise to those challenges, the anchors tend to either get really lucky, or get some insane abilities, like drawing whatever card they need among other things, and in a couple of cases, drawing the card they need even when it doesn't exist."

The fairy nodded.

"And that one variant loop gave anyone with the name 'Yu' that drawing-cards-that-don't-exist ability, but made it into...like, an actual concept..."

And while they walked through the forest, occasionally slashing down foes, Zethia would be walking along catching snippets of their odd, nonsensical conversation.

And idly wondering if her brother and closest friend had gone crazy without her noticing. (Yes. Yes they did)

~0~

"This Is AWESOME!" Yuya would find himself saying after he shifted into a **Giant FUcKiNG Dragon**!

Notte let out a peal of laughter. "Y-yuya...I can tell you really liked it! C-chasing your own tail like that."

He blushed faintly when she mentioned that. He hadn't meant to...that monster just kept...circling around him.

"So...that's a dragonpact?" He asked in an attempt to take her attention away from him chasing his tail like a puppy.

Notte's laughter eventually petered off. "Yep!" She answered. "When you make a dragonpact with a dragon, you can shift into it and use its powers. You pacted with the windwrym. Which has control over the wind and weather."

"The wind and weather, huh?"

"Yeah, though...oddly enough, for you some of the body parts turned red. And your eyes were different colors." And she also gestured to his mostly-blonde-hair with some streaks of red through it: The main indicator he wasn't quite her loop's baseline Euden.

Well, that and the spelling of the name.

"Well, a previous fused loop had me as a dragon-shifter that looked like my ace monster Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon. He pulled the card out of his subspace pocket and showed it to her. "See? That could be why." Yuya offered.

"Maybe." Notte considered.

"Anyway, this loop's been awesome!" Yuya said with a broad grin.

"It really has!" Notte agreed. "You're fun to talk and fight with, Yuya! I can't wait to tell Euden about this!"

"From how you've described him, I'd very much like to meet the guy."

"Maybe one of these days, we'll have a fused loop where you're both here. Until then though, we gotta get you through this loop. And I'm warning you, since we didn't do anything to prevent it, this loop gets worse."

Yuya just nodded, smiling confidently.

~0~

When he woke up back in the Yugioh-arc v loop, he was rather upset that he could no longer transform into that giant dragon from the last loop. Still, he flashed into his Odd-eyes form, breathed a tiny plume of fire and immediately went back into human form, happy that he _could_ still use the power he got from the fused loop with all the other protagonists, even if it was extremely difficult in his own loop.

"_Hey, Yuto?_" He sent over their link.

He heard a quiet grumbling as Yuto woke up. _"What?"_ He said with a long-suffering sigh.

Yuya shook his head with a smile. "_Yuto...get some coffee. There's something I have to tell you._"

* * *

2.3 (continued from 1.3)

He pulled the hood of his hoody up against the all-too-realistic frigid wind this part of the action field produced.

He'd easily snuck away from Gong and Dennis just a few minutes ago. He just made a few comments, which got them talking. They wouldn't have noticed if he murdered someone in front of them.

Well, okay, they _might_ have noticed that

He'd made sure the cameras nearby were disabled or covered, and his normal duel disk was replaced with Kurosaki's, though painted different colors so no one would recognize it.

He stood there and waited. Finally a mop of familiar spiky black and purple hair showed up.

"I'm gonna record this conversation for Yuzu, since she can't be here. Serena and Yugo are making their way over though."

"Okay. So why _did_ you want Shun's Duel disk anyway? And it better be a good reason. I had to put up with Shun being crazy for a week!" Yuto said. Yuya had given him a heads up earlier, but hadn't said anything other than that.

"Well, last loop I was thinking..."

_And isn't **that** a dangerous thing_. Yuto playfully thought and sent over their link.

Yuya snickered and rolled his eyes before continuing.

"As I was saying, the loop ends before we even get to leave Standard. We never get to recruit people in the Synchro dimension, or try to help out in the Xyz dimension, or even take the fight to Academia!

Reiji's probably going to start looping eventually, meaning we can speed up the process, but we don't know how long that's going to take. Yuzu and Serena agree with me. She actually spent another loop in Ruri's place in the Xyz dimension, and though Serena always wakes up after the invasion's over, one loop she saw through a video feed what happened.

They were both really upset that we can't normally do anything to help, so I came up with an idea."

He gestured to Shun's dueldisk on his arm.

"That we use the interdimensional travel technology already provided to us, you, Shun, and maybe Sora and Barett, and we go beat up Academia and put everything right ourselves, with or without the Lancers."

Yuto had to admit the idea appealed to him. He wondered how he hadn't come up with anything like that before.

"I would very much not recommend that." A voice said to their right. The two whirled around, dueldisks at the ready(It _could_ have been _anyone_, but the chances were significantly higher for it to be the Obelisk Force).

Standing before them was an ibis-headed figure.

"Hey Thoth." Yuto said, watching as Yuya's eyes widened in surprise and he lowered his duel disk. "The admin of the Yugioh loops?" Yuya questioned. Huh. Yuto hadn't expected him to know that.

"That is correct. Now, I have come to imposition you against going through with your excogitated events. You see, you two going to Academia will set forth events that are as of yet inaccessible to the branch."

Yuya blinked while Yuto was attempting to process that. "Uh...what?" Yuya asked, not understanding half of what Thoth said.

Sigh* "Transporting yourselves to Academia, or any of the other dimension for that matter, will trigger events that I have not yet made serviceable to your loop."

"Um...?"

"You. Can't. Go. To. Other. Dimensions." He said, picking him up and shaking Yuya by the shoulders.

"I'll explain it to him, Thoth" Yuto said.

Then Yuya was standing on two feet again. Wobbly, but standing.

Thoth cleared his throat "Yes, well, continuing on to business. Very soon I am going to deposit all of the interconnected Yugioh loops and all possible loopers in one ginormous fused loop, and while that is occurring I will begin to incorporate more segments of the Arc-V story into your loop. Be warned that I may not be able to finalize the story, but there should be very little left to adjoin when I've finished what I set out to fulfill. That being getting the entirety of the Arc-V loop fully online- -"

Neither yu-boy had understood a word of that wall of text, so Yuya asked him to simplify.

He sighed and repeated it, but slower and with less big words. Yuto seemed to get it after that, though Yuya was still confused.

"_I'll summarize it for you once he leaves._" Yuto promised.

So Yuya nodded, as Yuto understood what was being said.

"...and that was everything I necessitated to tell you."

Then he disappeared.

...

"He's a mouthful, huh?"

Yuto sighed. "Yes, Thoth's very long-winded. I'll tell you on the way to the LC tower."

~0~

"So if I understand this right, there's going to be a huge fused loop with all of the other Yu-gi-oh loopers, and then our loop will be longer?"

"Exactly."

Yuya leaned back against the wall, stopping their trek to LDS. "So, when's this fused loop going to happen?"

Yuto had to think for a minute before he realized, "He...didn't say."

Yuya sighed. "So we just have to wait?"

_"_Yeah..._"_ Yuto said in a slightly shaky voice. "We'll just have to wait and see."

* * *

2.4- Manga loop

He awoke while he was walking.

Or rather, while his body was moving, but he wasn't the one moving it.

"What did I tell you?" A familiar voice berated. "This all blew up because of you! Now they're onto us!"

He waited for the loops memories to hit him, but only a few things popped up. It was still enough to act on, so that's what he did.

_"What was I supposed to do? Ignore a crying kid?"_ He noticed that his voice was slightly echoey, like when he and Yuto talk over their bond, or when either of them talk in spirit form. So he and Yuto were already fused? Well, that wouldn't be so bad. They were both used to it by now.

Still, the lack of loop memories was rather disconcerting.

A loud sound came from the sky, and spotlights appeared. His mouth cursed and then he started sprinting across the roofs,

But as quickly as he was moving, it wasn't fast enough to escape. Before they knew it, helicopters surrounded them, a bunch of spotlights pinning them in place.

Someone leapt down from one of the helicopters and landed before them, pointing his finger out.

"Give it up Phantom" Called an eerily familiar voice. As the shadows parted from the man, Yuya had to double take.

"Or should I say Yuya Sakaki!" Sawatari called. "You're trapped like a rat!" He held his arm out while a dueldisk opened. He was challenging them to a duel.

"And your opponent is **me**."

At that point, Yuto had put his hand near his obscured face.

Yuya was curious as to whether their shared body would look like him, but with gray eyes, or Yuto.

...

"Very well.

...Shall I show my face?" And he pulled the goggles off. Yuya spiritually separated himself, floating outside their shared body to see.

A few more loop memories showed up, telling him that he was, indeed, Phantom. So If they were looking for him, it was a good thing their body looked nothing like him. Or...as much as it _could_ not look like him, which thankfully was enough this loop.

"**Unfortunately, I'm not the Yuya Sakaki that you seek**!" Yuto called, arms crossed.

What the heck did that mean?

"However, I **will** be your opponent."

Sawatari looked completely and utterly flabbergasted, and Yuya would have thought they'd take that chance to run.

_"Hey, Yuto! Maybe we should run for it while hes distracted?"_

"That was a bluff." he murmured "And believe me, I would run if we both didn't know they probably have a bunch of people waiting for us in the shadows. Also, that would blow your cover."

"What should we do, President Akaba?" Sawatari seemed to ask to a microphone.

"_Cover..? You mean that we're switched out and our shared body currently looks like you_?"

"Shared..?!" Yuto murmured, but before he could say anything else, Sawatari smirked and shouted, "I will arrest you in the name of the Leo Corporation!"

"_Welp_." He'd said, popping the "p". "_Your bluff failed. What do we do now?_" Yuya asked, still not really knowing what the heck was going on. The loop memories still hadn't come.

"Then duel me!" Yuto yelled, putting aside whatever he was just thinking(even concerning the worrying implications of what was just said by Yuya) in favor of getting them out of there. He activated his duel disk and pointed it at Sawatari who did the same.

Sawatari then held out his hand and shouted, "Deploy Action Field!"

A dome sprouted up around them, and in fr was the den of some creature. A little to the right of them was a large gate that glared at them with terrifying eyes and a gaping maw, and Sawatari was standing on a mountain just above the opening of a large cave.

"Behold, the Haunted Demon den!" Sawatari called. "I hope you're ready, because you can't leave this field until the duel is over!" Yuya took note of that.

Both Yuto and Sawatari raised their dueldisks and yelled, "Duel!"

* * *

2.1

Bracelet shenanigans, and those two trying to figure out what the heck is going on before the expansion.

As to why Yuya's being so...thoughtful? I dunno, I guess Yuto's rubbing off on him...?

2.2

The yugioh loops in particular have fused loops with each other rather easily, but fused loops with other branches can happen too. This is one of them. And I suppose you could say its one of Yuya's formative loops.

**If anyone wants to know what happened in that "Nutsy 'Yu' loop"_ GO READ KAMEN RIDER LEONITE'S STORY_****_! It's awesome!_**

I originally had Yuya keep the power of the dragonpact, but I was told that wasn't internal. So as for why he kept the _other_ shapeshifting powers... I dunno, let's just say that it's because that loop gave him a magical core that was also his soul and the fact that he could change forms at all was because of magic that came from the soul...

Or some other BS.

I dunno, you're not really supposed to take all the loops seriously((Sarcastically)And a great job _I'm_ doing of that...)

2.3

Thoth, the admin of the Yugioh loops hath made his decree. I might have the expansion interlude be the next chapter... Or the one after that. We'll see.

2.4

Yuya, welcome to the manga.

(I'm not sure if soul-bound co-anchors have to be in awake in the same loop at the same time, or if it's enough for them to just be awake in the same loop, but Yuto IS looping(The anchor/s are awake EVERY loop), Just...It might take a moment for him to wake up _there_)

To be continued...

**See ya'll in the next chapter!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Maidengale4evermore**: Sorry for the slight misunderstanding then. And Dragalia Lost is an action role-playing game for the Android and iOS.

**V01dSw0rd**: Yeah...about the spacebattles forum...can we talk about this over a PM?

**The Expansion Interlude is greatly Inspired**** by Hunter13Hawkie's Dragon Guardians. **

**GO READ IT RIGHT NOW! (Seriously, it's probably one of the most amazing yu-dragon-boy stories on this site~!)**

**I'm not sure how good this'll be, but I hope you all still enjoy!**

**And if you wanna help or contribute ideas, the box is open for any and all requests/and or aid!**

* * *

**3.1** **Expansion Interlude**

"Yuya, wake up. It's time to go." Came a voice that sounded suspiciously like Reiji's.

He groaned, though paused when he heard his own voice.

It came out like a growl.

The loop memories started to appear as he got up on all fours.

At a first glance...He, Yuto, Yugo and Yuri were all dragons, and he and Yuto were travelling with Reiji's group, (once again) referred to as the Lancers, across the land to help stop the attacks of the Fusion Kingdom, among other things.

He turned to his right, where Dark Rebellio- -I mean Yuto was being woken up by Shun.

With a flex of will, he *popped* into human form, which looked like like he normally did, but with slightly more medieval clothes, and minus the extra wings, horns and tail. He had to really concentrate to make those go away.

"Morning Reiji." He politely said, yawning again as he stretched. For whatever reason, he was pretty close to Reiji, and, well, Yuto was normally pretty close to Shun. (But he had to wonder, what about Ruri?)

But even though this version of him had supposedly gotten pretty attached to the leader of the Lancers, it would be difficult to see him as anything other than his...boss? Leader? Rival?

He himself was closest to Yuzu, only he couldn't see her anywhere nearby and that rather upset him. He inadvertently let out a quite whine.

Beside him, Yuto also popped into human form. It seemed easier for him, and the extra features weren't there.

Right about then, Yuya sent out a ping,

and got dozens of pings back. He figured it had to be the other yugioh loopers, and he personally couldn't wait to meet his and Yuto's fellow anchors.

Reiji was sitting on Yuya's right side as he ate the small breakfast they had managed to prepare, and Yuto sat on his left. Shun sat on Yuto's right, and seemed to be keeping an especially close eye on the two Yu-boys.

They both pretended to ignore it, even though it seemed _slightly_ out of character for him.

Reiji also seemed to be giving Yuya glances and then staring down at his plate for a minute, and after checking the loop memories, he realized that to Reiji, he'd been acting almost cold. He leaned against the silver-haired teen as he finished up his breakfast as a way to assure him that he hadn't done anything wrong.

Something that he'd never seen baseline Reiji do, this one did. He rubbed Yuya's head affectionately with a small smile on his face, and Yuya almost couldn't help the growl-like purr that wanted to come from his mouth.

After that, Reiji stood up, immediately garnering the group's attention. He could see all the usual Lancers there, except for three boys, the first with an upside-down pyramid shaped necklace and a crazy hairstyle. It was black and spiked up, tipped in magenta with blonde fringes. Say what you wanted about him, he at least had a somewhat normal hairstyle (though the color was a different story...)

His loop memories were telling him that this was...Yugi?!

The other two unknowns, a rowdy blonde man next to him named Joey, and an arrogant looking brunette wearing a white coat named Kaiba.

Running up and talking to any of them so suddenly would draw attention from the members of the Lancers that weren't looping(which was most of them), so he pretended to not be very badly wanting to speak to who he assumed were also loopers, and the anchor of one of the Yugioh branches. Instead, he discreetly stared at Serena until she met his eyes and nodded.

Then he met Yugi's eyes and tried to subtly gesture to him that 'they would talk later'. Luckily, he seemed to get the message and nodded.

"It would be best if we set off now. According to Kurosaki, we have a little less than an hour's walk left to reach the Synchro Kingdom, and then another half-an hour boat ride." He said, pushing his glasses up. "We set off when everyone's done with breakfast."

This was mostly received with acceptance, except for one.

"Akaba..!" Came a familiar whiny voice of a certain banana peel. But it was ignored by everyone.

Yuya tuned out the rest as he leaned against Yuto and finished reviewing his loop memories.

The Dimensions were Kingdoms, Magic replaced cards, and spirits and spirit-summoning/channeling were things that only a percentage of the population could do.

As for him and Yuto, Yugo and...Yuri, well, they would appear to be dragon spirits that have a physical presence in the human world and could shift into human forms.

He'd been with Yuzu since he was a hatchling, and the two of them somehow managed to survive in the wilds between the Kingdoms for several years before entering the...Well, not the _Standard_ Kingdom, right in the middle of a magic tournament. There, Yuzu disappeared (it was suspected she was kidnapped and taken to the Synchro Kingdom. (Huh. Some things just don't change...)).

Reiji figured out what he was thanks to Yuto and Shun appearing, and he'd been with Reiji ever since. Now they were travelling with the Lancers across the kingdoms, their ultimate goal, rescuing the other dragons(his brothers), getting to the Fusion Kingdom, and stopping Reiji's father, but they would also gather allies and help out wherever they could.

Also, most of the Lancers didn't know he and Yuto were dragon spirits. Or even that such spirits existed.

And he had long since started to notice the fire running under his veins. Magic, he'd guessed. It was something that spirits, especially, were good at using. But occasionally you'd find a human that had an unnatural talent with it as well, and they were often(not always) the ones who could summon spirits, so that's what they were passing it off as. In fact, all of the Lancers were people like that with varying degrees of talent.

He couldn't help but snort over the thought of Sawatari actually getting into the Lancers on his own merits. He wasn't dumb enough to figure out that Sawatari could have paid his way in after he got knocked out of the tournament.

Or Reiji was just _really_ desperate...

_Well, if he was desperate, why not bring in some of the other people in the tournament, that Mieru girl, for example. Or those so called 'aces' of his own school_, **_supposedly_**_ the best in their extra-deck summoning classes, _Yuto had said once. He probably wouldn't have paid any mind to it if Yuto hadn't been bored out if his mind and further pointed it out, actually.

Another thing, their link wasn't there. Or at least, they couldn't speak through it. He could still feel some of Yuto's emotions, but that was about it.

That, and his loop abilities and subspace pocket had been locked, so he couldn't access his dragonpact or his mecha-shift weapon or dueldisk. That would probably explain the limited link too.

He'd actually been warned about that, about certain loops only letting you use the abilities you have in _that_ loop. And this loop seemed to be one of them.

Though...aside from the Kingdoms and magic and spirits bit, everything had still ended up similar to a baseline loop.

Reiji Akaba from the...Pendulum(?) Kingdom formed the Lancers in a magic tournament he set up, and now they were travelling around the world helping people, along with steadily making their way to Academia.

They were making a stop at the Synchro Kingdom to gather allies and maybe get transportation to the Fusion Kingdom. And as everyone packed up their stuff and started walking again, Yuya's heart leaped for joy as he started being able to see gleaming white buildings over the tops of the trees.

Yuto, seemingly feeling that sense of excitement couldn't help but smirk as well. "I'm excited to see the city Yugo's talked so much about too, Yuya." But then he subtly jerked his head in Shun's direction, the yellow-eyed raid-raptor duelist watching them like a hawk.

Yuya nodded and tried to keep his excited bouncing to a minimum.

The journey there was relatively uneventful. He was still greatly amused by the fact that Reiji always wanted him to stay close to him. Shun watching them was a little unnerving though.

Yuto had asked him, several times, if he was alright. Shun would always respond that he was fine. Nothing in the loop memories offered an explanation for his behavior either.

He went with a hunch, and tried asking Shun a certain question that he'd asked, and been asked by several other loopers.

"Hey, Shun." He asked, trotting over to the guy. (Reiji was now the one keeping his eye on him and Yuto.)

"I'm feeling _loopy_ and need something to _anchor_ myself."

He watched as Shun's eyes widened immensely, and Yuya couldn't help but smile. "Thought so." He chirped with satisfaction.

Yuto came over, eyes wide having heard the question and seen Shun's reaction. They stopped walking for a minute.

Of course, Reiji stopped too.

Yuya sent a smile Reiji's way. "Don't worry Reji." He chirruped happily. "I just want to talk with Shun and Yuto for a moment." He kept the smile on his face. "We'll catch up in a moment."

Reiji, very reluctantly, mind you, nodded and kept walking, the rest of the group passing them as well.

When was sure they were clear, he whirled back around to Shun.

Yuto beat him to it. "You're a looper, Shun?" Yuya caught a stab of hopefulness run through his partner, and it increased and started turning into elation and relief as Shun nodded.

"I haven't been awake very often, but my first loop was a fused loop and the loopers there filled me in. Yggdrasil broken, the multiverse put in infinite time loops while it gets fixed..."

"That's the gist of it." Yuto affirmed.

"My turn for a question. Which of you's the anchor?"

The two Yu-boys glanced at each other. "We both are, actually."

Shun nodded at the answer before reminding them that they should get going lest they lose the group.

"Want a ride? I can carry two people." Yuto asked, and popped into dragon form. His spiked wings arcing with electricity that he briefly turned off.

The two got on, and with a couple of, slow, powerful wingbeats, they were off.

~0~

"This is the Synchro dimens- - I mean...Kingdom, Reiji?" Yuya asked with everyone standing outside the walls. There were piles of metal and trash everywhere, along with a few shoddily constructed huts.

Despite it all, Yuya was trying very hard not to squeal...or growl and jump around in complete joy finally being able to see the place they'd been waiting to see for who knows how many loops now, or feel complete sorrow and sympathy for the people and their terrible living conditions. He didn't have a lot of hope for the Synchro Dimension now in baseline now...

"Yes. We're here." As he turned around to address the group, a rather interesting scene played out before them.

"No! My reign can't end like this!" Screeched a blond man, being backed up against one of he many junk piles around by a large group of people.

Well, one of those people. The others were behind him with a bunch of finely garbed men with shiny badges and helmets. They were taking the helmets off of the guys, and Yuya thought he saw broken circuitry scattered around. The Synchro Kingdom was supposedly much more advanced than most of the world, and so they'd started applying more modern-looking circuitry, with magic being like electricity.

The man in front glared at the blonde purple-suited man in disdain. It was still early, so the sun being somewhat low in the sky made it difficult to make out many features of the people in the group.

"Roget, leader of the Synchro Kingdom," The man, probably the leader said.

"For your manipulation and conniving sabotage to seize the throne, you have been deemed an- -"

"An immoral asshole who deserves every bad thing you've got coming!" The man next to him cut in.

"For your violations of _basic human decency_, and overall of running the Kingdom into the ground..." Said what sounded like a woman, then the leader finished it up."...The Crimson Dragon deems you unfit to rule and sentences you to a shadow game!"

They looked towards a certain member of their group. "Yugi, if you don't mind." Said boy walked up, the object around his neck glowing, and then he suddenly seemed a bit taller, more confident.

He held out a hand, and spoke in a deeper tone of voice than Yuya thought he would have.

"Jean Michel Roget, you are a despicable man." "Yugi" intoned. "Mind Crush!"

Something happened where the air itself seemed to waver, then 'Roget' screamed and collapsed in a heap.

The non-looping Lancers stood there in shock. Even Reiji had wide eyes at what they just saw.

Then the entirety of the other group noticed them and turned towards them.

Their leader was a man with clear blue eyes, and spiked back black hair with gold highlights.

"Sorry you had to see that." He said, "This man took over the Synchro Kingdom and was essentially ruining it."

"That's not even the worst of it though," said one of a pair of young children with blueish-greenish hair that greatly reminded him of Sora. "He had an underground facility that he was using to do horrible experiments on people."

Most of the Lancers showed a visible reaction to this, disgust. Reiji though, had a look as if he recognized these people.

"You're the signers." He said.

"B-b-but that's impossible! The signers disappeared years ago!" Dennis along with a couple of others gasped.

The other orange-haired guy nodded. "Yeah, sorry about that, But we recently...'woke up'...and realized we had to do something about this man."

Yuya ignored everyone else and tried to not-so-subtly stare at the man who he assumed was Yusei.

The guy noticed his stare, and the gestures to both him and the Yuto. He subtly nodded.

"Welcome to the Synchro Kingdom." He said in a friendly way, gesturing for the Lancers to follow him as they made introductions. The Signers: Yusei, Jack, Crow, Akiza, Ruka, Rua, and Bruno. And the Lancers: Reiji, Yuya, Yuto, Yugi, Shun, Serena, Gongenzaka(whom he was not close friends with), Tsukikage, Dennis, and Sawatari

"Crow here," he put a hand on the shoulders of the orange-haired man "Can get you all situated. If you don't mind, I'd like to talk with Yuya and Yuto."

Reiji didn't argue, though he looked like he very much wanted to protest, he glanced at Yuya with worried eyes as he followed Crow.

"But Yugi-.." Joey whined , to which Yugi held up a hand. "I'll introduce everyone later."

"But Yuuuuuugi-..." He started protesting gain when the white-clad brunette spoke up. "Shut up, can wait a few minute" Joey scoffed, but walked away with Kaiba nonetheless

No one spoke until they were all out of sight.

Yugi wordlessly reached into his subspace pocket and handed Yusei a rather large sum of money.

"Alright, you definitely won that one Yusei. The fifth branch's anchor had a co-anchor." Yusei looked rather pleased as he pocketed the money. Then they both turned to him. "Either of you wouldn't happen to have pendulum cards, would you?"

Both Yuto and Yuya raised their hands, with Yuto explaining, "Yuya's the one who officially has them, but I have a separate deck with a few in case of an emergency. My go-to-deck is more based around Xyz summoning."

Yusei nodded. "Xyz, huh? You'd probably like it in Zexal then." Off to the side, Yugi pulled out another wad of cash and held it up to midair.

Or at least it was midair before a translucent figure that looked kind of like Yugi appeared and put the cash in his subspace pocket, Yugi glaring at his lookalike with no real malice and a smirk.

"Genesis Omega Dragon, did _all_ of the Yugioh loopers bet on us?" Yuya asked in fake exasperation. Really, he found the whole thing slightly amusing. Yuto did not see it that way and seemed to be holding back a groan.

"Not all of them, but a good majority bet on your loop." Yugi informed. The groan was made a reality.

Yusei gestured to the direction the group had gone. "By now they'll be wondering where we are, so what say we catch up?" The other three nodded and started walking behind Yusei as he lead them to the place Crow has brought everyone else.

Meanwhile, someone hiding behind a nearby scrap heap, stared at the sky, wondering what the heck was going on and what that all could mean.

He'd be getting his answer very soon.

* * *

**3.2** Quintent of Time displaced Cards users pt 1

Yugi once again found himself inserting the last piece of the millennium puzzle as a quiet _Click _rang out in the room.

Behind him, coming from the direction of his bed, someone yawned.

Yuya opened his eyes to be greeted by an unfamiliar bedroom. The walls were painted a light blue. There was a desk seated to his left, with someone behind it. And Yuya could have recognized that crazy hair style anywhere.

"Yugi?"

Yugi looked behind him at the familiar voice to see a tomato haired boy.

"Hey Yuya." He greeted. "Nice to see you again."

"Same." Yuya replied with a smile.

As Yugi slid the millennium puzzle around his neck, feeling Atem appear as always, he said, "Well, it looks like you're my younger brother for this loop."

"I guess so." He said, standing up. He had a bright smile on his face. "This is gonna be fun." Yugi couldn't help but smile back.

* * *

**3.3 **continued from 2.4

Sawatari started his turn, and Yuto ran for it, but was stopped by Sawatari summoning, and so the banana peel got the first advantage and immediately knocked them down to 3000 LP.

But with Sawatari's newly advanced summoned Demon Emperor Anguar (Atk:2400) he could reuse the effect of the action spell he'd gotten last turn, which dealt 1000 points of damage, and do it again. They were already halfway down when Yuto started his turn.

Normally, Yuya would have been a lot more worried, but he had faith that Yuto could take Sawatari down.

Right about then, he learned the difference between this loop's and the baseline's differences with action cards.

For one thing, there was only one available per turn, and when someone grabs it, that's it. For another thing, it was a good thing you could have more than one in your hand, because the one Yuto grabbed on the second turn needed two of them to activate.

And they acted like quickplay spell cards, which would explain how their lifepoints had been knocked halfway down on the _first_ turn. By **_Sawatari_** of all people!

"Looks like you drew a bum card." Sawatari taunted. Yuya couldn't help but lightly growl, "_Lets see if it'll be a 'bum card' when we have the second piece? You cowardly hundredth-rate banana-peel-haired duelist!_" It was his and Yuzu's favorite insult for Sawatari, as it never failed to get him riled up. Heck, even Yuto had taken to calling him that occasionally. Now though, he just looked confused before turning his attention back to the duel.

"I don't need action cards." Yuto replied with two facedowns placed. "And now I activate the cards I just set!" He declared.

Sawatari looked at them like they were idiots. "What an amateur! You can't activate a trap on the turn you set it!"

"Well, you can with these traps. When I don't have any traps in my graveyard I can activate this one on the turn I set it and summon it as a monster in defense mode!" Yuto informed them both and summoned his two Phantom Knight Shade Brigades, (Def: 800)

_Two level fours..._ Yuya absently noted. This was a familiar scene for him.

Apparently not for Sawatari though, as the guy openly gaped when Yuto overlayed his two monsters.

At that point, Yuya only paid half-attention to the duel. Yuto always won against Sawatari, he doubted it'd be different this time.

So instead he checked the loop memories again in hopes it would get the rest to show up.

And luckily, more did appear.

He was Sakaki Yuya, also known as Phantom and was being chased down for... Hacking into LDS's solid vision?!

...

Apparently he was doing so to locate the Genesis Omega Dragon card, because whoever has it will destroy the world.

He didn't know exactly how he knew that though, aside from it apparently being a dream.

Yuto, Yugo, and Yuri were...it looked like they were sharing a body, similarly to how he and Yuto would share a body, just with four now instead of two.

Though this version of him hadn't known the others were their own people, and had assumed they were alternate personalities.

Of course, none of them ever corrected this error in thinking. It made Yuya curious and perhaps a bit suspicious though, why they'd intentionally let him believe such a lie...

When he started paying attention again, Yuto was down to 200 lifepoints with an empty field. Sawatari now had the Level 8 Underworld Emperor Erebus (Atk:2800) on his field with a facedown.

Yuya had to stop and stare in shock for a moment and comprehend what was happening.

...

Yuto was LOSING?! Against _**SAWATARI**_?!

He couldn't help but ask, "_Yuto, what the heck? How's this guy beating you?_"

Yuto looked very apologetic, and Yuya once again wondered what the heck was going on.

He then made a decision.

"Goddangit..." He muttered, and switched with Yuto.

His jacket, going down to his feet and acting as a cape fluttered around him wildly in a gust of wind that appeared out of nowhere. His face and features shifted to show the visage of someone everyone here knew pretty well.

A few gasps were heard as his cape stopped fluttering, revealing his signature red and green hair and pendulum pendant.

A smirk appeared on his face as he stared down a thoroughly flabbergasted Sawatari.

Yeah, he knew they were supposed to stay undercover, but at this rate Yuto was gonna lose the duel and they'd get caught.

He'd also realized that pendulum summoning hadn't existed until he came around, so using it was probably a big no-no...

But he had to finish Sawatari off quickly. No doubt they were already surrounded, and it could get worse if this lasts much longer.

But he'd be damned if he didn't try to put on a show while he whooped Sawatari's butt.

The fun had only just begun.

* * *

3.1

*Big Inhale* DRAGON BOYS!

Oh yes, and Reiji's overprotectiveness of Yuya is going to play a part.

3.2

Otherwise known as BBT Mk III.

3.3

He's probably going to chew them all out when he discovers just how much they lied to him...

Again, haven't extensively read the manga, hope it was good enough though!

**Would've written a bit more of I but I didn't want to delay posting this for another day.**

**And with that, I bid you all adieu~**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** **Welp****, with more finals coming up for the rest of the month after school "ends" this week, I officially can't guarantee any sort of official schedule until they're over, but I will try to update at least once a week.**

**Oh yes, and disregard 3.1's note, I'm not sure if I'm gonna continue that one.**

**Well, hope you all enjoy!**

* * *

4.1 Manga

_"That actually worked..."_ Yuto said, breathing a sigh of relief as LDS' backup forces looked around in confusion. To them, it would seem as if he'd disappeared into thin air.

From a building just across from them, Yuya inwardly breathed a sigh of relief while tucked into the shadows.

"Geez Yuto..." He spoke quietly, addressing Yuto who's spirit form had materialized in front of him. He put his arm behind his neck in an exasperated motion. "What happened back there that Sawatari was beating you so badly..?"

Yuto stared at him. "_Sawatari?"_

Yuya gave him an odd look. "The guy with the banana peel for hair." Yuto's stare turned blank.

_"...Yuya, that man is an assassin from LDS sent after you when we hacked LDS's solid vision. He's never mentioned his name before, nor has he stolen anything from us."_

"...O-oh, of course!" Yuya stuttered with a strained smile. "I must've...uh... just read about him...somewhere..."

Yuto didn't look convinced, but also let it slide.

"So..." Yuya quickly changed the subject. "Do we have any fast way out of here?"

Yuto also let the obvious distraction slide. But he also seemed sightly worried about Yuya's sudden lack of knowledge of their situation. _Maybe us messing with his memories is having negative consequences..._ He pondered, before answering _"Did you forget about that one card that turns into a paper airplane?"_

Raising an eye-brow, Yuya searched his person and sure enough came up with an inflatable paper airplane.

Well...

There was suddenly a clacking sound as someone came sprinting up the stairs.

"Sorry I'm late Yuya!" Called an out of breath, familiar pink haired girl.

"What'd I miss?"

Unfortunately, the sound of her slamming the door open attracted the attention of everyone on the building across from them.

"Oops..." Yuzu said, brows creasing at all the people staring at them.

"Well, never mind that! Since you know my name, they'll think you're an accomplice." Yuya said cheerfully. He then tossed a card into the air and it exploded in a puff of smoke that revealed a large paper airplane.

He grabbed Yuzu by the arm, and chirped, "So I think we've over-stayed our welcome." They both hopped on the paper airplane and pushed it off the building.

_"Wait, Yuya! It's only meant for one person!"_

Yuya just smiled. "It's a good thing she's _really_ light then." He said it jokingly, but looked back to see the feather-weight charm tied onto Yuzu's bracelet.

Yuto would have said something else if not for noticing that the airplane was staying afloat, and they were making a successful getaway.

~0~

"I didn't miss anything, did I?" Yuzu asked with an easygoing smile once he successfully managed to get them back to his hideout. Yuya smiled back. "Nope." He answered popping the 'p'. "Except that Sawatari's actually competent." He could feel Yuto bristle a little. "Oh yeah, and Yuto's not looping."

Yuzu's eyes narrowed in thought. "Maybe he'll be here later?"

_"I'm right here!"_ He protested. "_And what do you mean by loops?"_

"It's nothing, don't worry about it Yuto." He could feel Yuto's presence disappear. He took the opportunity to tell Yuzu what was bothering him.

"Okay, so there's something wrong with my loop memories Yuzu."

She had a concerned look on her face, silently asking what was wrong.

"It's..." He put a hand to his head. "It's like they're not all there!"

He shook his head. "I can't remember anything before a certain point, and what I do have doesn't tell me much."

Yuzu walked over and hugged him. "Well, maybe it's intentional." She whispered. "And if it is, then I guess we'll have to run with this loop until we figure out why." He returned the embrace.

"Thanks Yuzu." He stood up, smile back on his face. "I don't know why I'm letting this get to me."

"It's fine," Yuzu said with a grin.

Yuya backflipped to the console in the middle of his base. "Either way, if we're going to go with this loop, I have to search for a card called 'Genesis Omega Dragon'."

Yuzu nodded in understanding, getting up and walking over to him. "Well, you know I'm with you all the way."

He smiled softly as she put her head on his shoulder, gazing at the console with him.

"And," He held up his duel disk for a moment. "This loop still has duel monsters. And solid vision! So I can still entertain people and put on a show with my dueling!"

Yuto had reappeared just in time to hear that. And he couldn't help but smile too, happy knowing the loops hadn't changed his partner.

_"Hey, Yuya."_ "Oh, hey Yuto."_ "I'm feeling loopy."_

Yuya's eyes widened, and seeing this, Yuzu glanced in the direction he was looking. She couldn't see Yuto, but she smiled at him with Yuya anyway, and knew he smiled back.

Right behind Yuto appeared two more figures.

A grinning Yugo who flashed a peace sign, and a frowning Yuri who'd been seemingly dragged out by Yugo, glancing at everyone else in the room with a slight hint of confusion.

_"Can someone please tell me why Yugo dragged both of us out? We were in the middle of something."_ He pointedly glanced at Yuto.

Yuto glanced back. _I want to stop messing with Yuya's memories._

Yugo nodded, like he expected that, while Yuri's eyes widened and he raised an eyebrow. _Why__ the change? We agreed it was better to keep him in the dark, so he wouldn't have to remember the pain of the past._

Yuya stared him down with his red eyes. "Whatever you guys were hiding form me, I promise you that I can handle it."

Yuri, though looking extremely hesitant, was now essentially being ganged up on by everyone else in the room. Still...

_"Are you absolutely sure about this?"_ He was met with the stares increasing in intensity.

_"...Okay then."_ He reluctantly said, head turned to the side and arms crossed.

_"So what'd I miss?"_ Yugo asked, letting go of Yuri's translucent forearm. The boy showed no reaction.

Before anyone could say anything else, the computer pinged.

Yuya immediately went to see what it was, everyone else, physical or spiritual stared at the screen too.

They watched Shuzo get his ass whooped by Shun, Yuzu cringing as her dad's body it the ground with a groan.

"This is a message for Yuya Sakaki." He was standing over Shuzo's groaning body. "If you want this man, come to Sakka Stadium Valley."

Yuya pulled up a map, and at a glance, both at the map and at his loop memories, there was no Sakka Stadium Valley. Though 'Sakka' _did_ sound slightly like another word that popped up quite a lot.

"Oh, and make sure you're aren't feeling too 'Loopy', when you come."

Then the video turned off.

Yuto actually let out a giggle, to which Yuri raised another eyebrow because it just didn't seem like a thing he'd do. "_Why did he emphasize the word 'loopy'."_ The purple haired boy asked, confusion and concern growing by the second.

He was mostly ignored though. "Well, now we gotta figure out where this place is." Yuya said, pulling up another map.

~0~

Deception Valley. That's where they were headed, and he hoped he was right with his deductions.

_Sakka _sounded like a mispronunciation of the word _sucker_, which implied an act, a lie. The illusion of someone messing up.

In other words, a deception.

And it was out of the way of the city, enough so no one would come across their duel by happenstance.

He approached the spot, and saw Shun standing there, arms crossed while looking utterly relaxed with Shuzo tied up on the ground behind him.

"Dad!" Yuzu yelled with only the tiniest bit of concern. She didn't like that he was tied up, but she also knew Shun wouldn't hurt him, and was rewarded by Shun stepping away from the man and telling Yuzu she could take him and go.

He only came for 'Phantom'.

Yuya smirked. "Are you another of the so-called 'assasins' sent to hunt me down?"

Shun nodded, a grin on his lips too. "I've been deployed by Reiji Akaba to take out the one known as Phantom. He expects results."

Yuya hummed, hands behind his head "Well, we don't know if he's looping after all..." Then his cape and Kurosaki's scarf swept around as if possessed by an unseen breeze.

Yuya then deployed his duel disk, signature smile in place. "Well, that's fine! I said I was going to go along with his loop anyways! So let's have a fun duel Shun!"

Shun smirked, also deploying his duel disk. "Alright, but I'm not holding back!"

And he deployed the action field.

"**_Duel_****_!_**"

* * *

4.2

A man with a stick and intimidating face opened the door letting light flood into the small, cramped box Yuya found himself in.

"Get out." The guy ordered when Yuya only shielded his eye in response to the influx of light after his eyes had adjusted to the dark.

As he emerged, he was led to an empty room with a couch and one other exit. Locked, obviously.

As the guide left, he tossed Yuya his helmet.

"_Hey Yuto, I'm willing to bet he put something in the helmet._

_"If you say so."_ His partner said, laying on his back in midair. "_And I'm assuming that we're not letting him get away with that."_

Yuya nodded. "_Of course not! We agreed we wouldn't let the loop be baseline until we were all awake._"

Yuto nodded. _"Right_" They all made an agreement thats they'd go through one baseline loop when everyone was awake.

It had yet to happen, as no more than one or two more people were ever looping at a time. So them along with whoever was awake for that loop would just have fun, let loose and cause havoc with their in and out of loop abilities if they had any.

They were waiting for awhile, during which, Yuya had quickly swapped his helmet out with a spare he'd kept in his subspace pocket.

"_Well..._" Yuto idly commented.

"_Some mess we're gonna have to get ourselves into._"

Yuya hummed in acknowledgement, still staring up at the ceiling, and somewhat wanting to punch that Roget guy. He'd be sure to do that eventually

He didn't know what was in that helmet, and he couldn't check when there were no doubt cameras watching them at all times, but it couldn't have been anything good. He'd come to expect that from the sleazy head-of-security.

_"Me vs Crow, huh?"_

_"Yeah, it's surreal that there are versions of some of the other yugioh Loopers in our loop_." Yuto said.

Yuya nodded in agreement. "_I__ wonder if either him or Jack will end up looping here...__"_

_"How do you think they're going to react to an alternate version of their home?"_

Yuya thought about it for a minute. "_Well,__ they didn't react well to that crossover loop with the Dimensions as Kingdoms, and cards as magic.__"_

_"Fair enough."_ He sat up straight. "_Is anyone looping?"_

_"I only got two pings back."_

_"Hmm..."_

There were screams in the distant direction of the stadium. That announcer lady yelled about a flower monster and a big dragon.

_"Yuzu and Yugo?"_

_"Yuzu and Yugo."_

They couldn't wait to see what those two did to the stadium.

* * *

4.2 (Alt)

A man with a stick and intimidating face opened the door letting light flood into the small, cramped box Yuya found himself in.

Or at least, it should have been Yuya.

"**_RRRAAAAWWRRRR_**!" Went the red, odd-eyed dragon attempting to flare its pointy wings in the cramped box.

The security man found himself frantically backing up and attempting to re-lock the door, but before he could it swung open with a gust of wind. *_WHOOSH*_ and a flash of red followed by a rush of air as the creature leaped out past him, the sharp edges of its wings scratching and knocking him over as it ran.

"Emergency! Sir! The prisoner was gone and replaced by a... a..."

_"A what?"_

"A...a dragon, sir."

~0~

Yuya smirked as he heard a roar of fury as Roget no doubt noticed he'd escaped. With another whoosh of his wings he was flying. Yuto was hovering next to him gaping slightly.

"_But...Odd-eyes doesn't have wings..._" He murmured. Yuya barked a laugh, well, growl as he mentally replied. "_~Maaaaaaaagic_~" He demonstrated by flapping his wings again to rise above a tall building, the red scales reflecting the light from the Tops part of Neo-Domino city.

He looked like his Odd-eyes card. That was probably the point, Yuya had basically _been_ odd-eyes for that loop. Yuto had tried doing something similar, though it only seemed to work in certain circumstances and loops. Never mind the fact that he was usually in spirit form. And he hadn't seen if Yugo could do anything like it yet.

Yuto didn't get another chance to think however, as Yuya had landed and shaken out his red and green colored hair, breathing in and out deeply.

"_Still tires you out_?"

Yuya shook out his hair, and pulled a water bottle from his subspace pocket which he then began taking big gulps out of.

"I'm getting better, but I still can't hold it for _too_ long." He tossed the empty bottle in a nearby trashcan.

"_Any pings?_" Yuya nodded no. "Just us for now." He pulled a spare dueldisk out. "What say we go paint the town red, aibou?"

Yuto just rolled his eyes with a smile as they walked off.

* * *

4.2 (Alt)

A man with a stick and intimidating face opened the door letting light flood into the small, cramped box Yuya found himself in.

"Get out." The guy ordered,

to an empty room.

"Sir! The prisoner has escaped!"

He ran out of the room, leaving the door wide open.

Which was very convenient, because a moment later, Yuya landed on the ground right next to the door.

"Heh. Sucker."

_"That was way too easy..."_

"I know, right!"

**_Seriously_**, the room was just that secure that he couldn't break out without his loop abilities or the items in his subspace pocket. So where else could he go in this _cramped_ but otherwise _vertically spacious_ room?

"_Well, that's good to know for later. They're idiots_. _It'll be easier to prank 'em_"

Yuya gave him an odd look. "Should I start looking for flying pigs? _You_ of all people are suggesting I start pranking?"

Yuto pretended to look offended. "_What's that supposed to mean?_

_And yes. I'm suggesting you prank people. I have to admit, their reactions are hilarious._"

Yuya smiled at his partner. "Alright then. Maybe I'll go leave a whoopy cushion on Roget's chair or something. We'll start amping it up after the planned baseline loop."

* * *

4.2(Alt)

A man with a stick and intimidating face opened the door letting light flood into the small, cramped box Yuya found himself in.

"Get out." The guy ordered when Yuya only shielded his eye in response to the influx of light after his eyes had adjusted to the dark.

"Hey, Screw you man! I was trying to take a nap!" Yuya snapped at the guy, who seemed slightly taken aback by his sudden hostility.

"Sir, he's not obeying. May need backup."

Yuya's eyes widened. He really didn't want to be manhandled again. "Okay, wait, wait! I'll go!"

The man tentatively looked him over, noticing the panic in the boy's posture.

"Nevermind. He's agreed to cooperate."

"On one condition!" Yuya quickly added.

The guard still had his stick up, thinking he'd just take the boy by force. "Alright, I'll humor you. What?"

"Can I tell Roget something quickly?" Before the guard could say anything, he found his communicator was taken, and the tomato-haired boy was screaming something into it.

"*****! **** *******! **** ****! ****, **** ****! ****!" Yuya just yelled any vulgar word or phrase that came to mind, and by now he'd met people with some rather..._colorful_ vocabulary in the multiverse so he had a **_lot_** of insults to use.

Eventually, the communicator was taken from him and he was subdued and escorted by several more guards than what he'd started out with.

He was then forcefully shoved into the oh-so-familiar-waiting room.

Yuto just gave him a deadpan stare. "_Really? Cussing at him?_"

_"I dunno, I was running out of ideas_. _And I had to listen to Ryuji just cussing for a full minute straight that one loop. Some of them kinda stuck..._"

_*Sigh* "Well, nothing we can do about it now. We just gotta roll with it._ _But be ready for rougher treatment_."

"_Alright..._" Yuya mirrored Yuto's sigh hearing the usual announcement. _"Me and Crow again, huh?"_

Yuto nodded. "_Yeah__. You wanna **actually** duel him this time?_"

"_I said I was running out of ideas to stall That sounds as good as anything_."

* * *

4.3

"What do you normally do for your loop?" Yuya asked his "older brother" for both him and Yuto.

Yugi adjusted his grip on his backpack as he answered, "Well, for now we're just going to school. And I might get into a few duels with my friends afterwards."

Yuya gave him a blank look. "That's it?"

Yugi nodded, smiling at Yuya's disbelief. "Yeah. It'll start picking up, but the beginning of my loop isn't anything crazy."

"So when _does_ the crazy stuff start happening?"

"Later today, actually. And no one else from this loop is looping. So if we do want to get to the exciting stuff the way we normally do, we're gonna have to go to school."

Yuya groaned.

~0~

School wasn't all that bad, actually. At least Yuto was in school with him.

Although Yuto kept insisting he pay attention to the teacher. But it was just as boring as he remembered.

Yuya wouldn't call himself an 'A' student by any means, but he was passing all his classes.

The stuff they learned in school just never interested him. I mean, seriously, when was he _ever_ going to need to use _arithmatic_ in the multiverse?

~0~

Some loops later...

~0~

"Welcome everyone, to this loop's round of Jeopardy!

Our contestents today are:

Yuya Sakaki from Yugioh Arc-V,

Dexter, from Dexter's Laboratory

And Annabeth Chase from the Riordanverse.

Our categories for today are:

Chemistry,

Architechture,

Aaaaaand Arithmatic!"

Yuya blanched. "Hey wait!" He protested. "Shouldn't there be a category for duel monsters?"

A familiar head of purple and black hair stood smirking next to the announcer.

"Normally, there would be, but I asked the announcer if he could...switch it up a little for this round." A smug grin was on his face as Yuya paled further.

...He was never going to sleep through class again.

~0~

Back to the present...

~0~

When class finally let out, he dragged Yuto to Yugi's class.

As he opened the door and spotted the spiky-haired anchor, he shouted "Yugi onii-san!" And glomped him.

Yugi seemed slightly taken aback by the sudden show of affection, and he swore he could hear Atem laughing at him.

"So, this is your brother Yug?" Joey asked.

Téa walked up to him and pinched his cheek. "Awww~ He's adorable."

"Who's the other guy?" Tristan asked, gesturing to Yuto.

"I'm a friend of Yuya's." He answered. "I wanted to meet this older brother he was always talking about."

"So, do either of you play duel monsters?" Yugi asked. Silly question, of course they played duel monsters.

"Yeah!" Yuya said enthusiastically. "I never go anywhere without my deck!"

"That's awesome! You wanna duel?" Joey asked, just as enthusiastic.

"Always." Yuya said, pulling out his deck. He was about to pull out his dueldisk, when Joey sat down at chair by a few desks put togethe to make a table.

"Dueldisks weren't created yet." Yugi whispered to him, "Ya don't say." He murmured back and sat down across from Joey.

They both put their decks down on the table, though Yuya slammed his down like he was putting it into his dueldisk.

Yuto sat nearby with everyone else, watching intently.

"Let's duel!" They both called, and drew their hands.

(Insert duel here.)

~0~

"Joey's deck only has monsters?" Yuya asked, helping Yugi organise the cards in his grandpa's shop while Joey talked to explains a lot...

"Yep." Yugi affirmed. It was such a strange concept to him. Sure, his deck had a lot of monsters in it(mostly pendulum cards) , but he still had a few spells and traps to support them.

"How was he one of the top three duelists in the world?" Yuto wondered, also there and helping.

After Yuya and Joey's duel, Yugi had mentioned Joey going with him to see his Grandpa's super rare card and getting his tutelage. Yuto had noticed Seto Kaiba watching them in the corner, but Yuya didn't think much of it.

"Over the course of our loop, he gets _much_ better. But, yeah. Like Yuma, he had a rough start." Yugi answered.

He suddenly turned to his grandpa, who looked like he was about done talking with Joey.

"Hey Grandpa, can we see that super rare card you have?" He asked to move things along.

"I don't see why not." The old man pulled out a card. "Here it is, the Blue-Eyes white dragon."

Everyone, including Yuto was looking at it.

But so was someone else.

A brown haired boy wearing their school's blue uniform walked in carrying a briefcase

"If you give me your Blue-Eyes old man you can have all of these." The briefcase opened to showcase a bunch of high level and rare cards.

"No." Soloman immediately replied, not even considering the offer. "This card was given to me by a dear friend. The emotions and memories it carries are worth more than all the cards in the world."

Kaiba looked shocked, and walked out fuming.

~0~

They walked into the Kaiba Corporatoon building to see Yugi's grandpa on the floor, groaning while Kaiba stood over him waving his Blue-Eyes White Dragon in the air.

The sound of paper ripping filled the room, and Kaiba dropped the card, now torn in two.

Before Yugi could ask why he'd do that, Yuya beat him to it.

"H-how could you..._ Why_ did you rip his card..?" The tomato-haired boy asked, head down, fists clenched and knuckles white while trembling slightly.

Yuto looked like he wasn't fairing much better. His head was also down, his bangs overshadowing his eyes. He looked more composed, but had his arms crossed, and was gripping himself so tightly his nails were starting to draw blood. Téa was fretting over him slightly, pulling a bandage out from her purse.

"So it could never be used against me." Was Kaiba's simple reply.

Yuya brought his fist up, flinching at the screeching roars of pain he heard from the ripped card.

"Well, you're going to pay for that!" He pulled out his deck. "I challenge you to a duel Kaiba!" He was trembling, and barely looked stable

Yugi stepped up next to him putting a hand on his shoulders. "Are you sure you don't want me to handle this?"

Yuya shrugged his hand off, standing up straight and glaring at Kaiba with crimson eyes.

"Duel me!" Yuya yelled.

"I accept." Kaiba said with a smug smirk. They took their places at his dueling field, placing their decks in their respective spots. They drew their starting hands.

"Duel!" Both called.

(Insert Duel here)

* * *

4.4 dragonraptyr

Yuya blinked, taking in the harsh sunlight that was atypical of the loop start. As his vision cleared, he had to bite back an excited grin.

Finally! He was in the Synchro Dimension!

No more endlessly repetitive ending, from here on out it was all brand-new! (For a while, at least.)

He sent out a ping for good measure, but got no response other than Yuto's.

_Yuya It's not a new loop._ Yuto pointed out.

Yuya scratched the back of his head. "Force of habit."

The sound of a summoning filled the air, and Yuya looked over in annoyance at the wall monsters blocking his way. Nearby, Serena and Shingo prepared for battle.

_Reira_! Yuto pointed out, drawing Yuya's attention to the frightened duelist. _Poor guy._

Yuya nodded, but pulled out his Duel Disk. "Let the show commence!"

~0~

Yuya sweatdropped at the man in front of him. Sure, the man in front of him looked like Crow, talked like Crow, but...

_Crow doesn't normally go on about food._ Yuto stated.

This was going to take some getting used to.

~0~

Crow blinked, looking up at an Awake Yusei. "Why do I have the sudden urge to rant about food to tomatoes?"

Yusei just shrugged. "It's the loops. Roll with it."

* * *

4.1

Yay! Manga! I'm making my way through it little by little.

Not sure if I was characterizing Yuri right though,

**Someone who's read the manga, please tell me if I'm characterizing our little cabbage haired boy right!**

4.2

First look at the expansion.

And I suppose they like messing with Roget.

4.3

BBT MkIII again, and Kaiba is going _down_. (Not at all accurate to the show...I think. I was mostly basing that on the abridged series, but with more stuff added on.)

Just wanted to get this out of the way, but Pendulum summoning _does_ exist in this loop. It would be one of the ones the game starts with like Fusion and Ritual summoning.

4.4**  
**

A little intro to the Synchro Arc that I found on the Spacebattles forum and added, cause' I skipped any intro for Synchro Arc loop.

**Please send me ideas!**

**And BTW, I put the (insert duel here) things because it takes me a ridiculously long time to write even the simplest of duels. But I really didn't want to delay posting this for another few days(Read: a week or more).**

**Well, hope you all liked it, and I will see you in the next chapter!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello all and welcome to this RWBY-centric chapter **

**that I have reposted **

**Don't worry, the regular chapter will be coming out this week, there were just a few snippets I initially had to take out that I wanted to put back in.  
**

**Also I added a fourth drabble to the...I think it was the fourth chapter...**

***Ahem*****Now, I previously rushed to get this chapter out, because thanks to VoidSword, I have realized many things I have gotten wrong with the loops involving Dragalia Lost.**

**So**** I went and changed them.(Not necessarily enough for another read, so I'll say it here)****Yuya did NOT keep the dragon-shifting power granted by the dragonpact in Dragalia Lost**.

**He**** CAN still shift into a Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, but that's because of the fused loop between all the Yugioh branches **(And I was _considering_ that maybe he'd get to keep his aura? Cause...it comes from the soul and whatnot. Give your thoughts in a review please!)

**With**** that, I have to give a big round of applause for my friend and fellow-author,** _Roses Bride_** who wrote the brilliant RWBY/YGO Arc-V crossover story, The Remnants of Earth! of which two of the snippets take ideas from(with her approval and permission, of course). And I added onto the second one.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

5.1 Quintet of time-displaced duelists 2

He woke up and stumbled out of his full-on sprint, nearly crashing into the guy running next to him.

"Aack! S-sorry." He tried to apologize when the guy he was was apologizing to swiftly grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back into a full-on sprint.

"No time to talk cos, we've gotta move before we're late."

Yuya immediately dug his heels into the ground. "Wait, Judai, I can fly us there." He told his fellow anchor and cousin for the loop.

Not five second later, a red Dragon could be seen carrying a brown haired boy on its back as they zipped past everything and soon made it to a big dome in the middle of the city.

They raced past a familiar duelist with spiky black and purple-tipped hair with yellow fringes. "Hey Yugi!" Jaden called and Yuya chimed in with a growl as they raced past, the King of Games waving back.

"That was awesome!" Judai whooped when they got to their destination. While Yuya panted. "Glad you...thought so." He was close to collapsing.

Judai was immediately there to help him up. "Take it easy there, Yuya. Thanks to you, we're actually _early_." He seemed to chuckle at the very thought. "Hey, as thanks, maybe I can teach you a few tricks during the loop."

Yuya smiled. "If you wouldn't mind."

Jaden just grinned. "Of course! Anything for a fellow anchor. Now, let's get inside the Kaiba dome. The entrance exams are about to start." He grabbed Yuya by the shoulders and pulled him inside.

* * *

5.2

He opened his eyes and was reading a magazine in some shop with headphones over his ear blasting some song he didn't pay attention to. _From Dust 'till Dawn_, his memories told him the shop was called.

_Huh. Remnant again._ He...she noted.(Holy shit he was a girl!)

And he...her name for this loop was Akai Rose.

She almost facepalmed. Her name translated closely to "Red Rose."

Then someone behind her said, "Put your hands in the air."

She decided to ignore him under the pretense of actually listening to the music. The man growled, and repeated "I said put your hands in the air." He grabbed Akai's shoulder. "You got a death wish or something?"

"Hmm..?" She hummed, as her hood fell off, and she was told to take off her headphones. The guy dressed in black with red sunglasses lowered his red sword, thinking she wasn't a threat. She hid a smirk at the thought.

"Yes, sir?"

"I said put your hands in the air. Now!"

She pretended to look confused. "Are you...robbing me?"

"Yes!" The man replied, annoyed.

Before he could finish that thought though Akai clubbed him over the head with the weapon in her hands before kicking him into the far wall.

Two more grunts appeared, at which, Akai switched out Crescent Rose to the weapon she was most comfortable with.

But the only thing Torchwick noticed was the *crash* and splintering of glass as the two grunts he sent to check the area went flying out the window.

And landing on top of them with a weapon that very clearly wasn't a scythe, was a person he'd never seen before.

_Another looper?_ The thief wondered, before deciding it wasn't worth it and hightailing it out of there.

Akai watched him go and waited for Glynda to appear.

~0~

Pretty big timeskip...

~0~

Yoru Arc sat on the bullhead wondering where Yuya was. He'd seen one person who _could_ have been him. That person had dark green hair that was tipped in red and had several red highlights throughout hidden under a red cloak.

That person was also a girl. One he could've sworn was giggling at him.

So when they'd finally arrived at Beacon, he had hope he'd find his partner there.

When he did not expect was that the girl from earlier would walk up and introduce herself.

"Nice to meet you." She said with a dazzling smile, holding her hand out. "I'm Akai."

He shook the offered hand. "I'm Yoru."

Then she did something that surprised him even more. She pulled him close so their heads were next to each other.

What she whispered, though, surprised him the most.

"Hey Yuto. It's me~"

His eyes widened in disbelief. "Yuya? B-but..."

"I'm a girl. Yeah." She rolled her eyes at her partner's reaction. "I see you haven't had a lot of experiences with gender swaps." Yoru nodded, still somewhat dumbstruck. "I think...someone mentioned it as a possibility once...but-"

"Seeing it in person is another thing entirely?" The purple haired-boy nodded.

Akai rubbed the back of her neck.. "Yeah, It's the first time it's happening to me. I was just more mentally prepared because I've talked to several loopers who've been gender-swapped. And I have to admit, it's a little uncomfortable..."

Before Yoru could say anything, Akai had added, "Now, are we going to Initiation or not?" and started pulling her partner along to the place she remembered it being while Yuto finished wrapping his head around the fact that his partner was female.

~0~

"Hey, I saved a spot for you!" A well-endowed blonde woman yelled, waving wildly to get their attention.

"Hey Yang!" Akai called back with a smile. As they walked up to the Yang, she introduced him.

"Yang, this is my partner and co-anchor, Yuto. Though he's going by Yoru for now."

Yang shook his hand with a smile. "Nice to meet you, Yuto."

"Um...you too." he replied meekly as she sized him up.

"Don't do anything to my sister, okay?" She warned, causing a small embarrased blush to erupt on Yuto's cheeks as he sputtered that he could _never_ see his partner that way.

Both females ended up laughing messes on the ground.

"I-I was just kidding, Hahahaha! Y-you should've seen the look on your face!" Yang struggled to say through her giggles.

They were stopped from saying anything else by the headmaster walking up onto the stage.

"I'll keep this brief..."

~0~

"Hey, Yuto!" Akai called as they soared through the air.

"I bel-ieve I can fly!" She yelled, causing Yoru to chuckle before she began pulling out Crescent Rose and shooting herself forward. She latched onto a tree and landed softly on the ground. Not a moment later, the shadows around them shifted and Yoru landed next to her.

"Well, I guess we're partners!" She chimed with a blinding smile, hands behind her head as she leaned up against the nearest tree.

Yoru just nodded and started walking in the direction of the temple, Akai following behind him, humming all the way.

It wasn't long before they ran into a white-haired girl slashing down some grimm in the forest. Akai immediately jumped off to help while Yuto stuck to the Shadows, evaluating the white-haired girl.

Surrounded by a bunch of rapidly decaying grimm corpses, Weiss introduced herself to the looper replacing Ruby who seh's actually met once before. Nice to see you again Yuya." Akai smiled. "You too Weiss, though it's Akai for now."

"Of course." The White-haired heiress said. "Now, I'm guessing your partner is the one hiding behind that tree to the left?" At that Yoru rolled out from his hiding spot. "How did you know I was there?" He asked.

Weiss smiled. "I'm force sensitive." The two nodded, both knowing what that meant as Star Wars was one of the better known loops. Yoru held a hand out. "I'm Yoru Arc." he said. Weiss nodded and shook his hand. "You're taking Jaune's place this loop. So don't hit on me." She said jokingly.

Yuto looked slightly aghast. "I won't" He assured her.

Weiss smirked. "Now, if we'll continue with Initation. The Temple is over there." She pointed and the two rushed off.

~0~

Yoru panted as the giant Deathstalker attempted to impale him with his stinger again. He manipulated the thing's shadow and managed to knock the tail to his left so it was stuck in the ground. He slashed at it, then backed off slightly as a shield was thrust into it, almost severing the thing.

"IS THIS NORMAL FOR YOUR LOOP!" Akai shouted from the top of the now crumbling ruins as she narrowly avoided the Nevermore's flung feathers. Luckily he had the proficiency and accuracy to slash through them and come out unscathed and only shaken up emotionally.

"CAUSE THE FIRST TIME I WAS HERE, I DIDN'T HAVE TO FIGHT A HUMONGOUS BIRD AND A GIANT SCORPION!" She left out the fact that she _did_ have to fight a large spider droid with help. Though they had also skipped this part of Initiation at the time.

"Yeah, this is normal! For baseline, anyway..." Yang yelled, sending a flare from Ember Celica into the bird's mouth. "We have a crazy plan worked out and everything."

"ALRIGHT!" She yelled, zipping down to where they were. "Let's hear it."

"First off, it works best with Crescent Rose..."

~0~  
After explaining the plan(the one where Ruby runs up the cliff and decapitates the nevermore)  
~0~

"That's insane..." Akai said, mind momentarily boggled by the insanity of the plan.

Weiss, huffed gently. "Actually, that's one of the _less_ crazy plans."

At Akai's disbelieving look, Yang teased. "You don't have to, sis. We'll handle it. I get that being the anchor for a card game loop means you're not used to more physical action."

At that Akai shook off her bewilderment and nodded, determination gleaming in newly silver eyes. "No, my loop actually has more physical action than the other Yugioh loops. The new action duels require running around and riding on your monsters sometimes, we get to ride motorcycles in the Synchro Dimension, and at some point I even got skates. I'll have no problem with this." He readied Crescent Rose as everyone did their jobs. Yang got the nevermore to crash into the cliff, Weiss froze it there with dust and they all made a catapult.

Just as Yoru, Pyrrha, Ren and Nora finished with the Deathstalker, they turned to watch Akai run up a cliff with a Nevermore hooked by the neck with a gun scythe. As she reached the top of the cliff, the nevermore's head flew off as Akai did a flip and landed.

"Well I'll be. She actually managed it." Yang said to both Blake and Weiss, Weiss who nodded and Blake who smiled seeing Yuya's further improvement with combat.

At the top, Akai looked down and winked while waving and balancing on her open scythe wedged in the ground. Yoru waved back. For his entire fight, he'd had to rely on his semblance of Shadow manipulation as he had little to no practical experience with fighting physically, nor were his loop memories particularly helpful in that situation.

He resolved to ask his partner where she learned to fight like that, and if she could teach him as well.

Before the loops, his mind never would have thought of the possibility. But maybe he could help stop Academia another way...

* * *

5.3 RWBY Remnants of Earth

This was by far one of the most startling awakings in...well, since Yuya started looping.

He woke up directly in the middle of a match with Reiji.

He had just charged at Reiji who deflected it and used his semblance to teleport to the other side of the arena, and was shooting dust-covered arrows at him.

Yuya whirled around and on instinct started slashing through the arrows. He had to take a step back, but not a single one got past him.

It seems they didn't need to hit him though, for the dust to activate, as his arms were now frozen solid in blocks of ice. He grimaced, barely sidestepping a blow while he used the barest bit of fire magic to thaw the ice on his arms until it was thin enough for him to shake it off.

Reiji struck at him again, but he caught it with his own weapon and pushed it off to the side, leaving him open and getting a shot in. Reiji jumped back and teleported to the other side of the arena once again. This time, Yuya launched a blast of concentrated dust directly behind him, which actually hit Reiji, rather surprising the guy, yet he still managed to fire off his bow.

Yuya quickly deflected the arrow, but before he could get close enough to attack, Reiji teleported again.

Though he didn't attack immediately, so Yuya took the brief moment to gather his wits.

Beacon, Remnant again, Team RYGY(Ryuji) with Reiji as the leader, Yuzu and Gongenzaka there too. For whatever reason he felt like Reiji owed them after they helped him out, didn't know how to deal with the guy and just _really_ disliked, and initially challenged him to this fight to kick his teeth in.

There were other teams and things to ponder but Reiji chose then to attack.

He probably didn't expect Yuya to know exactly where he was and be perfectly ready to strike.

Thus, his eyes were very wide as Yuya met him perfectly, before deflecting his attack and bludgeoning his wrist making him drop his weapon.

At the same time, he swept Reiji's legs out from under him and had his own weapon pointed at his face, completely impassive with only the slightest hitch to his breathing. Really, Yuya didn't know why he was so calm. He figured her at least be buzzing a tiny bit from the adrenaline. Reiji also seemed surprised at how calm he was.

Glynda called the match, and as he offered a Reiji a hand, he glanced at the board,

He had lost...maybe ten percent of aura from the ice arrows. But he hadn't taken any other damage or used his agility-boosting semblance once, so that was about it. And he'd maybe lost another one percent from blocking Reiji's...admittedly, not too powerful blows. His style seemed to be more getting the drop on his opponent. Like Blake, more of a stealth fighter.

And Yuya's style seemed to be rushing the opponent and overwhelming them with his speed and agility.

But that was not how he fought in the slightest.

He'd need an excuse as to why his fighting style changed so drastically.

Oh well...he'd come up with it later.

Sometime during the fight, cheers started up. Which then erupted into full out applause when the match was over.

With a grin, he bowed to the audience, and as the applause finally started to die down, he went to sit with his team.

He just had to ignore the confused and impressed looks (and maybe one scorching glare) they and their sister team Team MYST(Mist)

He just smirked inwardly and waited for the class to end.

* * *

5.4

Yuto plopped down next to him in the warehouse, weary and exhausted, though only mentally. The last few loops he'd been running on autopilot. While he appreciated the admins potentially trying to give him a few recovery loops, they only served as a distraction.

Yuya wordlessly hugged him, and that was all that needed to be said between the two.

Suddenly, a little furball of fluff and leaves *swooshed* next to Yuto, its furry tail brushing Yuto and tickling him as it sniffed him.

Then it started letting out wails, as if it was trying to alarm them about something. Yuya immediately scooped the little tyke up and sat down again with the creature perched in his lap. "I know Gin, I know, Yuto's not doing well."

He examined the little creature that now seemed to shy away from him. It was red and looked like a very big-eared lemur with tiny stubs of horns on its head, lighter-orange rings of fur on its back amidst tiny little tuft-like wings and a very long, fluffy, squirrel-esque ringed tail. When Yuya began rubbing its head with the thing purring contentedly, he noticed a bunch of leaves growing from the base of it's neck.

"Yuya, what the heck is that thing?" At his question, the little creature perked it's head up and looked at him, seemed to study him for a minute before jumping onto Yuya's arm and balancing there.

Yuya pat the thing's head again before saying, "This is Gin. He's my Ginger tea dragon from the last loop." The little dragon then jumped onto Yuya's shoulder's, and hid behind his hair. "Yuzu actually bonded with one too, though I'm not sure if she managed to bring it to the next loop. I came straight here as soon as I woke up."

"Why did it come over to me and start wailing?" He asked.

Yuya chuckled. "Gin here is very sensitive to emotions. Though he's pretty shy, if he feels like someone needs help, he'll start trying to get people's attention on that person.

Yuto noticed the tea kettle and cups next to Yuya. As his partner poured out a cup, he added, "I know, a couple loops ago, being back in the destroyed Xyz Dimension after so long had to be pretty shocking."

Then he held up the cup of tea to Yuto.

"So...want some tea?"

Yuto gently took the cup and sipped some.

He stared at the cup for a second. "...This is really good. Bitter aftertaste though, unless that was intentional..." He quickly gulped down the rest of the cup.

"It wasn't, actually, but I'm glad ya like it. The Tea Dragon Society loop lasted a couple years, and those years were dedicated to learning how to care for tea dragons and make tea. Though I also picked up a little blacksmithing from it." He sipped from his own cup. "Yuzu's actually a lot better at the tea making than I am."

He saw Yuto barely listening as his body relaxed slightly and he got a content look on his face. "Tea made from a tea dragon's leaves mixed with different herbs gives it different magical properties. The one both of us drank is supposed to help with relaxation."

Though at this rate, Yuto looked like he would fall asleep.

Yuya quickly pulled a pillow from his subspace pocket and put it next to Yuto. Not a minute later, he heard a soft *thump*, and Yuto lay face-down on the pillow, looking so much more peaceful in sleep than he likely had for the past couple of loops.

Yuya also tucked a blanket around Yuto's sleeping form, and Gin started nuzzling him with his soft head. He smiled softly at his tea dragon, indulging it with a pat, and then looked at Yuto.

His smile widened slightly. "Sweet dreams, Aibou."

* * *

5.5 Remnants of Earth

"Hey Reiji?" The young team leader stopped in the middle of the hallway at hearing his name being called as he exited the library. "Yes, Yuya?" He asked.

"I-I'm...I'm sorry..."

He then launched into an apology for how he had treated Reiji, apologized for acting cold and snappish towards him. Even apologized for originally challenging him to that battle that he'd intended to rough him up more than was necessary. He said how he was willing to accept him as his team leader and teammate.

"And as long as you don't do anything to Yuzu, we won't have any problems." And Reiji nodded all serious-like to the last part.

Yuya fell over and sweat-dropped. "Reiji...that last part was a joke..."

The guy smiled. "I know, but it was fun seeing your reaction."

Yuya smiled as well despite the oddity of Reiji acting like that. Maybe he just needed a few friends...

"Well, I just don't want there to be any bad blood between us, since we're gonna be on the same team and all." He said while rubbing the back of his neck.

Reiji seemed to ponder this for a moment, as if judging Yuya's intentions. Then he nodded in agreement. "Yes, it would do everyone well not to have us fighting, as we'll be sharing a dorm room for the remainder of our time at Beacon."

"So...Teammates?" Yuya held out a hand.

Reiji took it without hesitation and in agreement. They shook on it and walked back to the dorm together. Yuzu fist-bumped in victory that her partner and one of her closest friends were willing to get along.

Now all she had to do was find out when Yuya had the chance to train without her and Gong.

Later in their dorm, Gongenzaka would see Yuya and Reiji not really speaking to each other, but he would notice the lack of tension between the two as well while they got ready for morning classes. And he also had to smile that Yuya was willing to give Reiji a chance, and perhaps make a new friend.

~0~

The next few days they'd been sitting with Team MYST at lunch after the first week of school was over. There was a bulletin board up in the main hall that listed a bunch of electives the students could take. Everyone was discussing what they'd sign up for, and there were plenty of them. Advanced Dust applications, Logistics, Tech & Mechanics, Survival skills, and many others. However Yuya's mind lingered on one in particular, though he hesitated on voicing it as he'd never shown interest in this kind of thing before.

While he thought it over, Reiji had informed Yuzu of his surprise that Yuya would want to take more classes. Yuzu told him, "He's always been into extra school activities. Yuya needs to be doing something or else he gets restless." Reiji had nodded while in thought after learning that.

Yuzu thought over her options too, and wanted more time to think about it over the weekend. Everyone else voiced their choices until Reiji and Yuya were the only ones yet to say anything. Everyone pointedly looked at Yuya who then said, "I can't really decide between the Mechanic or Dust one yet, but I definitely want to take Faunus Studies."

He got a couple stares from Team MYST for that, and a couple curious glances from his own team as well. Yuzu started looking on her scroll murmuring "I wasn't aware they had them..."

"What's with your sudden interests in faunus, Yuya?" Masumi asked, feigning curiosity. Yuya simply smiled and leaned back in his chair. "It just seems like an interesting class to take."

Yuzu tapped her scroll a few more times and said aloud "Oh! Here's the class. It's going to be taught by a guest teacher, Crow Hogan."

Yuya let a smile come to his lips as he thought of Crow teaching, and then listened as everyone butchered the pronunciation of his name.

"Anyway, Reiji, you haven't said what courses you're going to be taking." Yuzu piped up. Yuya watched as everyone in their group stared at Reiji, and figured he wouldn't like all the attention on him, but he seemed to be taking it in stride. An uncharacteristic smile came to the gray-haired teen's lips. "I'll take Logistics, and..." he seemed to be in thought for a moment. "Yuya's right. Faunus studies does sound interesting. I'll be taking that too."

Yuzu and Gong weren't sure how Yuya was going to react to that, but the red and green-haired boy smiled a smile so bright it lit up the room. One they hadn't seen in a long time. "It'll be nice seeing a familiar face in that class, Reiji. Let's both do our best!" Reiji returned Yuya's sudden happiness with another uncharacteristic smile and nod of his own.

Everyone had to wonder, where did this sudden sense of camaraderie between the two come from?

* * *

5.6

Yuya woke up and watched while two figures moving faster than his eye could follow thrashed the robots on the train as if it were nothing.

So caught up in watching their beautiful yet deadly dance, at first he didn't notice one of the robots locking onto him. Though just as it approached him and raised its weapon, another blade intercepted and slashed the robot in two. A girl with black hair and amber eyes and a man with red hair and bull horns appeared and dealt with the last of them.

When it was done she walked over to him and started looking him up an down. The man with horns asked "Focus, Yuya. We're in the middle of a mission. You can't afford to get distracted here." He said with a scowl.

Yuya's posture straightened as he looked sheepish. "Sorry Adam." He said apologetically. The man just scoffed. "Let's hurry. With the security measures kicking in, it won't be long before the crew members become wise to our infiltration."

And while that was going on the amber-eyed woman was studying him, when the train hit a bump and he fell over. The minute Adam left for the next train car, she said. "You better be more careful if you don't want the loop to end early for you."

Yuya's eyes widened. "You're also a looper?" The woman smiled and nodded, the black cat ears on top of her head twitched. Yuya then felt a twitch on his back.

His head slowly swiveled around to show red scaled wings on the small-ish side were twitching behind him. His eyes widened as the extra appendages began flapping around, as he steadily began to panic before he started realizing that this was supposedly normal and he's had them his entire life.

"You get used to it." The girl- -Blake said with an amused smirk. Then she looked thoughtful. "Though I will say, most visiting loopers aren't faunus."

Yuya shrugged. "Well I've got no explanation for that. Changing the topic though, are we still getting out of here when this is done?" He asked as they started moving to the next car.

"Unless you want to stay in the White Fang." Blake told him. "Yeah..no." Yuya immediately decided. "Alright then, just play along." Blake ran up to the roof where there were more robots. "You might not be used to fighting, so rely on your loop memories." Blake also decided that she wouldn't use her out of loop abilities so she could see what this new looper could do.

This time, Yuya did join in the fighting, slashing through a few robots as he went trying to keep up with Blake and Adam. Blake watched him, and noted he did indeed seem slow and unwieldy with his weapon, though looked like he was slowly getting accustomed to using it as he followed her advice.

He watched as Blask left afterimages when she moved with her semblance of shadow clones, and wondered what he could do. Though his loop memories then told him that he didn't yet know what his semblance was, as he was several years younger than both Blake and Adam and had only somewhat recently gotten his aura unlocked.

As they clambered back into the train, still fighting through robots until finally, the waves stopped coming. Adam and Blake approached some large containers, and Yuya's eyes widened at all the explosives within.

"Perfect." Adam chuckled a malicious smirk evident on his face. "Move up to the next car you two. I'll set the charges." Yuya's eyes widened again and even if he was to play along so they could get away, he had to speak up. They were on a train carrying both dust, supplies, and _workers_ through the forever fall forest. "W-wait...what about all the people on the train/"

"What about them?" Adam replied with an uncaring tone.

Then Yuya paled further as a humongous Spider droid clambered down from some hidden compartment above them, and both Adam and Blake rose to face it. The wings on his back twitched in anticipation, and he could almost taste the static in the just before air as the spider droid opened up a REALLY big cannon and fired at them. None of them(except for maybe Blake) were quite ready for the blast that sent them all sprawling several cars ahead and back on top of the train.

"Buy me some time!" Adam yelled.

"Are you sure?" "Do it!"

Blake and Yuya complied, running around the large robot and hacking at it legs, either alternating with leaping up on it to dent its outer carapace however they could with their weapons. As it attempted to fire at them, Yuya used his wings to slightly propel his jumps while Blake did the same with her Shadow clones. When Adam yelled "Ready!" they both got the heck out of dodge, and on Blake's signal ran ahead to the next car.

Yuya could feel the vibrations as Adam slashed through the spider droid after absorbing its shot with his semblance. When he started running to join them, they turned around while on the edge of the next car. Adam, seemingly realizing what was going on, reached a hand out as if to ask them not to leave. But Blake just said goodbye as Yuya cut the cable connecting the cars, and Adam's car slowed down whil theirs kept going until they coulod no longer see him.

Yuya sat down, panting slightly as he wasn't quite used to the physical exertion of fighting. "Is that it?"

Blake nodded, also sitting down. "For now. He becomes a problem later." She also seemed to have a slightly haunted look in her eye as she said that, but quickly snapped out of it and turned back to Yuya.

"Now that we have some time to rest, welcome to the RWBY loops."

Yuya smiled brightly. "Thank you for having me. Are you the anchor?"

Blake nodded. "No, that would be Ruby. But I plan on going to Beacon, so if you tag along, we'll meet her there."

"Sounds good." He said with a relaxed smile while flexing his wings and folding them back as the train pulled into the Vale station.

* * *

5.7 dragonraptyr

Yuya blinked Awake just as Nico Smiley walked in.

"I'll do it." He cut off the duel promoter before he could get a word in edgewise. "I'd be more than happy to duel Strong Ishijima, on one condition. Can you get me an audience with Reiji Akaba before tomorrow?"

Nico Smiley nodded in glee. "Certainly! It would be a pleasure!"

Yuzu looked at Yuya with a frown on her face. "Yuya, what are you up to?"

Yuya only smirked. "I'm gonna wow the crowd, but I can't do it alone. As for what's going on, wait and see tomorrow!"

~0~

The rest of his set-up went exactly as intended, and Yuya let the duel with Ishijima play out as it had in baseline. Once again, the surprise of his Pendulum Summons made the crowd gasp in amazement at the unexpected summoning.

Right on cue, Nico Smiley ran up to him.

"That was incredible! Such an unexpected turn of events! Yuya, can you tell us anything about that incredible move you pulled just now?"

Yuya nodded. "I'm afraid that I'm under an NDA at the moment, so I can't say too much. What I can tell you all is that it's called a Pendulum Summon, and is performed with Pendulum cards. Sadly, these cards aren't out on the market yet, but please look forwards to the Maiami City Championships! A big announcement is planned!"

Yuya smirked as the crowd went wild. Time after time, his first Pendulum Summon made the crowd smile, smiles which were quick to turn into frowns when they learned more about Pendulum Summoning. Arranging a meeting with Reiji and offering to let him study the Pendulum cards seemed to be the perfect way to circumvent this. Sure, he couldn't use his Pendulums until the tournament, but he'd been Looping long enough that he didn't need them, and he left the audience breathless and waiting on the edges of their seats for more.

"The fun has just begun!"

* * *

5.1

BTT MK III is moving along. Say hello to our(and my) favorite spirit-seeing kuriboh head!

5.2

Genderbending.

Yup, the multiverse of the infinite loops is a crazy place. There's a reason most stories for this are satire...

5.3

The loop inspired by Roses Bride's Remnants of Earth story. **GO READ IT!**

I came up with this idea when I was reading the story and it mentioned that Yuya wasn't actually that good of a fighter. Then I though about my story where he i_s_ a decent fighter, and thought, what would happen if...after all those years, he suddenly had a personality/skill shift(at least it would seem that way to the non-loopers)

And he's not a faunus in this one like I planned him to be for regular RWBY loops, because he's not a faunus in the story. (Which if Yuri's also ends up being a faunus, then that's just not fair as Yuya'd be the only one without that advantage!)

5.4

Back to baseline for un momento. Maybe I'll cover Yuri's first loop in the next chapter...Not sure exactly when or how to do Zarc's(technical one) though...before or after...

I'd ask Leonite on the Spacebattle Forums but he isn't very active nowadays.

5.5

Another loop inspired by an idea after reading Roses Bride's Remnants of Earth story. **GO READ IT!**

This actually changed from my initial concept of having a looping Yuya and a non-looping everyone else. _Because apparently Reiji's a stealth looper~_

I ended up adding more onto it to hint at that little fact.

5.6

Yuya's official formative loop, not his first fused loop at that point in time as Leonite's story will attest, but it'd be the first fused loop that wasn't one of the Yugioh branches.

5.7

Haha, readers, let me tell you a tale.  
I...don't have anything for this.  
Someone else wrote it and I got permission to put it here...

* * *

**A/n: Lo siento...just a repost. But don't worry I'll have the actual new chapter out later this week if all goes well. See you in the next one!**


	6. Chapter 6

**I reuploaded the 5th chapter with lots of more stuff added, and added a fourth snippet to the fourth chapter. Go back and read those if you've got the time.**

**And enjoy!**

* * *

6.1 (TheIdeaGuy)

Zarc's First Event

Scene fades in from black showing Konami's apartment.

Zarc: Yo, Konami. Sorry to show up this early in the morning but it seems there was a mix up for the duel arena scheduling so we got stuck with the early morning opening.

I know, I know. I tried to get it changed to a more ideal time to no avail.

…

Thanks for being so understanding, you could probably catch up on your beauty sleep after practice. We're going to have to run if we want to make it on time so let's go.

Scene change. Duel Stadium.

Zarc: Alright, looks like we made it on time. Hopefully we'll get some time to come up and practice some new performances.

Zarc: Thanks again for agreeing to help me with this Konami, I'd be in a very tight spot even it wasn't for you.

Zarc: When I saw there was a duel tournament coming up I jumped at the chance to sign up, before I even checked what kind of tournament it was. Still, I have a feeling this Tag Tournament will be one no one will forget anytime soon.

A very pompous looking man walks up.

Pompous Man: Hey, what are you kids doing here this early?

Zarc: Huh? Oh, we're going to practice for the upcoming tournament.

Pompous Man: Really? Bit of an overkill to book the entire field for you two to practice strategies. Can't you do that anywhere?

Zarc: Well, yes. But it's not just normal dueling, it's entertainment dueling. So we need to practice some stunts for the action duel.

Pompous Man: In that case, get out of here so we can use the duel field

Zarc: What!? Why should we, we booked it fair and square.

Pompous Man: Because most people are annoyed by Action Dueling, especially clowns like you that jump around like idiots in the middle of a duel.

Zarc: Why you!

Pompous Man: Well, if you're not just gonna leave then it looks like we'll have to rough you up a little in a duel first.

Zarc: You're on! Come on Konami, let's show these punks how we duel.

_After Duel._

Pompous Man: Gah!

Scheming Woman: You idiot, these two aren't easy targets at all.

The two run with their tails between their legs.

Zarc: Argh! What's their problem, if they couldn't get a booking they should have just tried again another time.

Zarc:...

Zarc: Huh, yeah I'm alright Konami. Come on, we wasted enough time dealing with those two as it is.

Zarc: We might not be able to practice much, but it's better then nothing.

Zarc's Second Event

Zarc and Red Hat duel another pair of annoying duelists at the tournament, these two getting under Zarc's skin and managing to make him aggressive near the end.

Zarc's Third Event

Zarc and Red Hat duel another pair, Zarc feeling conflicted on the joy people in the crowd showed when he went brutal on their opponents. Zarc begins the slippery slope he went down in canon.

Zarc's Fourth Event

Red Hat duels Zarc to remind him of who he is, not what people want him to be. With the strength of their bond, the cheering of bystanders and Zarc's four dragons the young duelist comes back to his senses.

Zarc's Final Event

Tournament Finale where Zarc and Red Hat show the crowd the wonders of action dueling and bring them more joy than any brutal duel could, Zarc talks about opening up a dueling school with Red Hat.

* * *

Jaden looked at Yuya as the younger Anchor had his head on the table "Bad Loop Yuya?"

Yuya lifted his head to look at Jaden "I wouldn't say they were bad but I got stuck repeating a Loop where everyone would take whatever chance they had for a Tag Duel over a normal 1 v 1" Yuya leaned back into his seat "I mean, I don't mind it that much but it took me a while to get used to the regular tag duels"

Jaden smiled as he sat down across from Yuya "So, finally had your Tag Force Block. I was wondering when you'd go through it"

"Tag Force Block?" Yuya asked with raised eyebrows.

Jaden nodded "Yep, Tag Duels being more popular than regular duels isn't that uncommon of a Loop to go through. The fact they tend to go back to back regularly is why we started calling it a block. Y'know, like for TV."

Yuya nodded "I get that, but why add 'force' to it?"

Jaden shrugged "Sounds cool and there was a short series of tag duel games I came across during a Hub Loop called Tag Force, so it kinda of stuck" Yuya nodded, Jaden smiled as he leaned closer "So, how long into these Loops til you teamed up with Red Hat?"

Yuya blinked "Wait, are they common for the Tag Loops?"

Jaden chuckled "Hardly one without a random duelist with a Red Hat able to work alongside anyone in a duel."

"Well, I woke up already teamed up with Red Hat for a tournament." Yuya furrowed his brows "Even though my Loop memories told me we had been dueling together for some time I was still surprised how well our decks and strategies worked together. I even used some of my non-baseline cards to see how they'd react and they were still able to keep up"

Jaden smiled fondly, "Yeah, sounds about right. When the Tag Loop first started I was convinced that the duelist who always wears a hat was secretly a copycat duelist I fought in baseline, but after we teamed up to beat said copycat and the random student he talked into helping, that idea fell through."

"Have Yusei, Yugi and Yuma gone through this as well?" Yuya asked, wondering if all the Anchors for their Branch shared those Loops.

"Totally. I was the first to go through a Tag Loop then Yusei followed by Yugi and Yuma" Jaden looked at Yuya with a concerned expression "I'll be frank, Tag Loops can be fun and relaxing but those when Red Hat joins up with one of our Rogue's Galleries can quickly change that tone. Did anything like that happen to you?"

Yuya nodded grimly "Yeah, something like that. For the last six Loops straight Red Hat teamed up with Zarc"

Jaden frowned, "That's really uncommon, normally Red Hat changes Duel Partners with each new Loop. Was there really that much of a difference for Red Hat to be teamed up with Zarc six times in a row?"

Yuya made a so-so gesture "Yeah, two of the Loops took place in the Original Dimension before he was divided, another two took place when Zarc came back in baseline and the last two happened after he was suppose to have been sealed away but somehow bonded with Red Hat to duel us to regain his power."

Yuya took out his Odd Eyes Dragon Pendulum "For the Original Dimension, I, Yuto, Yugo and Yuri were all duel spirits of our signature dragons, we were all Awake at the time, so we watched as Zarc slowly began to become twisted before being saved by Red Hat who used a Performapal deck to save Zarc and prevent the dimensions from dividing."

Jaden looked at Yuya surprised "OK, that went better than I thought. What about when Zarc appeared in baseline?"

Yuya scratched his head "Well, everything continued as normal before Red Hat was sealed alongside Zarc. And the last pair of Loops had a resurrected Zarc with their own body trying to more or less try to turn over a new leaf, which involved reuniting the dimensions as a form of misguided recompense"

Jaden nodded "I see, still, what was the main difference between those three pair of Loops?"

"Zarc was a girl in one set." Yuya said with a deadpan.

"Ah." Jaden said with a slow nod. "I see."

"So, wait. Is Red Hat Looping or are they just part of the Loops?" Yuya asked as he leaned closer, "Because every-time I dueled with Red Hat they had several rare cards impossible to find in my era but could be found in the others."

Jaden shrugged. "Honestly, we're not sure. So far our best guess is that Red Hat is either visiting a Looper doing a Stealth Run or Thoth having a more hands on examination of things."

Yusei and Yugi quickly approached the two Anchors at the table with a piece of paper Yusei put on the table. "Seems like there's a Tag tournament taking place. Either of you interested in signing up?"

Yuya groaned as he put his head back on the table.

Jaden saw the confused look of his the two and explained "He just came from a Tag Force Block, I don't think Yuya'd be interested in a Tag Duel for awhile"

The two Anchors nodded, Yugi patted Yuya's back while Yusei said, "Right, that's fair. When it comes to Tag Force Loops it always a wise idea to spread them out as much as possible. Too many Tag Duels with Red Android can lose it's appeal after a while"

"Red Android?" Yuya asked.

"Red Hat is a robot sent from the future in Yusei's era." Yugi explained, confusing Yuya even further.

Yuma rushed forward towards the gathered Anchors "Uh, guys. You need to see this!"

The gathered Anchors looked outside and saw several people wearing Red Hats and Red Jackets. Yuma spoke as they looked over the sight "Seems there's a free promotion for the upcoming Tag Tournament, enter and get a free hat and jacket custom fitted"

No one spoke for several long seconds before Yusei spoke "OK, remember. Don't take any Red Hats off forcefully, chances are at least one of them is The Red Hat for this Loop and we don't want to cause a crash."

"Or put one of those Red Hats on." Jaden added before explaining to Yuya that forcefully taking Red Hat's hat or putting it on usually causes a crash to occur.

Without saying a word Yuya walked off and put one of the Red Hats on after turning to his fellow Yu Anchors "Sorry, I just can't deal with another Tag Loop this soon"

The Loop crashed shortly afterwards, Yuya opened his eyes as he fell out of a bunk bed.

"Yuya, what are you doing?" Yugo said from the top bunk.

"Sorry bro, feeling a little Loopy."

"Me too." Yugo said.

"Same here." Yuto said from the top bunk of the bunk bed opposite Yuya's and Yugo's.

"Right, so we're all feeling Loopy." Yuri said from the bunk beneath Yuto. "Now what exactly is holding onto me?" He asked as a sleeping Chibi form of Starving Venom Dragon clung to him. The other Yus checked their own beds to find similarly chibified versions of their signature monsters.

The door to their shared bedroom was suddenly opened by Zarc in his original form "Come on you four, we're going to be late for school and I doubt my teachers are going to accept 'my four younger brothers held me up' again."

"Ack!" Odd Eyes grunted "Can't we just skip today?"

A Chibi version of Supreme King Zarc jumped onto Human Zarc's head "Don't you dare endanger the future prospects of your buddy because the work they need to do isn't fun. Now get moving my servants, it's our turn to clear the backyard today."

* * *

6.2 dragonraptyr

Jack gave a sigh, looking out over the skyline towards New Domino. It had been an early Awakening, with himself, Crow, and Yusei still a part of Team Satisfaction. Plenty of time to get things right early, and have some fun later down the line.

The roar of an engine cut though the afternoon silence, pulling Jack's attention. Crow pulled up alongside the curb, shutting off the Blackbird's engine. "Hey."

"Hey yourself." Jack said. "Something up?"

"Sorta." Crow replied, sitting down beside Jack. "Just thinking about the City, you know?"

Jack nodded. They'd both been waking up there more frequently. At present, it was pretty much a 50-50 chance as to where they would wake up. "We do get a lot of loops over there. I think it's because Yggdrasil is getting muddled with regards to our baselines. This is our true baseline, but..."

"We have lives over there now, too." Crow finished, pulling a couple of coffees out of his Pocket. "Here. they're still fresh. Anyway," he took a sip. "It's getting harder to say that it doesn't affect us, you know?"

Jack did know. As loopers, their decks were more fluid. But even he couldn't deny that Scarlight was as familiar, and almost as dear, as his Red Dragon Archfiend at this point. "It's interesting how the loops swing, right? But that's not what you wanted to talk about."

"No." Crow admitted. "The loop decided that my kids were in this one."

"Oh." Jack took a deep sip of coffee. "And we fix things. Right."

Crow nodded, sipping his coffee in silence for a moment. "They have a chance at a future, here." the other signer said at last. "And while I know that we both do all we can whenever we Wake Up in the Synchro Dimension, the fact is that we can do more good here than we can over there right now."

Jack gave Crow a pat on the back. "Then let's find Yuusei and change the plan. This loop, we're giving your kids the brightest future we can figure out. Okay?"

Crow smiled. "Thanks Jack." he said, biting back a chuckle.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing." Crow grinned. "Just that you weren't your usual hammy self at all there."

Jack gave a mock scowl, and stood up. "Then I promise you, Crow Hogan, on the ideals of the Daedelus Bridge, on this Dragons' birthmark, and on my honor as The King of Riding Duels, I will give your kids a happy loop or spend the next ten loops in Eiken!"

"Hey, don't go jinxing it now. You'll give Thoth's baboons ideas."

* * *

6.3

"Hey...Yuzu?"

Yuzu looked up from what she was doing. "Yes Yuya?"

"I'm boooooooooooored..." He moaned.

"Hello bored, I'm your girlfriend." Yuzu snarked.

Yuya turned upside down on the couch, head hanging down and red eyes staring at her with a deadpan look on his face. "Haha. Very funny...Oww!" He had slid forward and banged his head on the ground.

Yuzu was only half-paying attention as she focused on what was in front of her. "Well, that's what you get for insisting we not go for the Maiami Championship this loop. "

"...Yeah, I guess so..." As he sat up on the floor rubbing his head. "But I wanted to spend time with you this loop, and we're not even doing anything...!"

Yuzu shrugged absentmindedly. "_I'm_ doing something. _You_ are supposed to be taking care of Gin and Clef."

Yuya fiddled with his pendant. "Well after I gave them food, they started playing over there in the corner."

Yuzu finally looked up and behind her to see the two tea dragons cuddling together in the corner. She then shoved what she was working on back into her subspace pocket and walked over to Yuya. "I guess it has been awhile since we've been by ourselves." She sat cross-legged next to him, and he let his head fall into her lap. She began absentmindedly playing with his hair as they sat in the peace and quiet of Yuya's house while Yoko was out for the day.

~0~

Not a few minutes later, the front door swung open, revealing Gongenzaka standing in the door frame. The loud *Slam* scared the little tea dragons who immediately ran to their owners.

"Yuya Yuzu!-..." Gong started to exclaim before noticing the position his two friends were in.

Faintly blushing, the two pulled away slightly before Yuya, composing himself asked "What's wrong Gong?"

Gongenzaka didn't mention what he just witnessed and instead asked, "Can one of you please explain why time seems to have repeated?" Then he noticed the tea dragons. "And why do you have mini dragons on the ground next to you?"

A pair of red and blue eyes met, incredulity and excitement evident in them. Big grins split both their faces and Yuya tackle-hugged Gongenzaka. Yuzu walked up and hugged him, and Gong asked what they were so happy about.

His two closest friends had tears in his eyes as Yuya looked up at Gong's confused face. "Cause we finally get to say 'Welcome to the infinite loops, Gong'."

* * *

6.4 dragonraptyr/krspaceT

Joey watched in half-amusement as an unawake Kaiba walked over to the small table where himself and Yugi were playing. Kaiba stopped in front of the table, scowling down at them with all his Kaiba-esque glory. Then he cleared his throat, and looked at Yugi. "I heard through the grapevine that your grandfather is the legendary Ping-Pong master Solomon Mutoh. Could I get his autograph?"

~0~

Alexis' eyebrow twitched. Her parents looked supremely nervous. "Three years." She ground out, glaring at them. "I spent three years studying this, and you want me to devote another three years of my life to this as well?"

Her father nodded uncertainly. Her mother wrung her hands, looking shy. "Well, your brother's done quite well for himself..."

Alexis exploded. "You really want me to spend six years of my life, and go to specialized schools, all for the love of Ping-Pong? I don't care how popular it is, that is a worse idea than sending me to school for children's card games!"

Her father looked up at her. "They also have an excellent sewing program. Your brother sends us the most amazing clothes."

"Arrrrgggghhhh!"

~0~

Leo looked at Luna. Luna looked at Leo. They both looked at their dragon tattoos. "So. Ping-Pong on motorcycles." Leo said. "Actually a pretty hard thing to do."

Luna nodded. "And instead of the Crimson Dragon, it's the Ping-Pong dragon." She traced the image of a claw holding a ping-pong ball magically tattooed on her arm, the twin to her brother's Ping-Pong Paddle birthmark.

Leo nodded sagely. "Although how the city became literally divided onto two halves of a giant ping-pong table with a net preventing travel is beyond me."

Luna patted her brother's back. "It's the loops, Leo. Roll with it."

"That is a horrible pun, Luna."

"It was an accident, I promise!"

Leo gave her a doubtful glance. "Sure it was, Luna. Sure it was."

~0~

Astral looked at the ping-pong paddle in Yumas hand. "So, this loop we must win the 100 championships to regain my memories, and if we loose a single match, I die." the translucent looper stated.

"Pretty much." Yuma replied.

"Looping observation *&^^34/L: There is no way I'm risking my life over Ping-Pong." Astral stated, floating away from Yuma and Shark.

Yuma shrugged. "We'll finish this match first. Then no more Ping-Pong."

_Elsewhere..._

"You and I, our eyes have met!" Quattro stated dramatically. "We must engage in a Ping-Pong battle!"

_Why, loops?_ Astral wondered. _Why did it have to be like the Pokémon games?_

~0~

Yuto twitched. Yuya grimaced. "Ping-Pong balls." Yuto stated, grinding his teeth together. "Academia destroyed my dimension with Ping-Pong balls."

"Giant ones?" Yuya asked, only for Yuto to shake his head. "Ones as fast as bullets?"

"No. Just...Ping-Pong balls. Ordinary ones. Not lethal in any way. Hit by a small wooden paddle."

Yuya's jaw dropped. "How did they accomplish that?" He asked in bewilderment.

"I have no idea." Yuto replied. "And I was _Awake_ for it."

"So now I have to face off against masked Academia goons hitting Ping-Pong balls at me?" Yuya asked his counterpart.

"Exactly."

_Meanwhile, in Synchro..._

"It's a plague of Ping-Pong balls!" Jack screamed, watching Ping-Pong games on Motorcycles again. "They're following me!"

Down in Commons, Crow sweat-dropped at his fellow looper's antics. "Just smile and nod, Jack. Smile and nod."

~0~

"Tell me Slifer Slacker, why is it that I am the teacher and you the student?"

"Because I'm paying and you're the one whose paid?" Jaden offered as the ever...Crowler, twitched before holding up a giant ping-pong racket.

"I have a P.H.D in Ping-Pong, and you don't."

Jaden sweat-dropped. "Sheesh, Political Communications too tough for you?"

* * *

6.5 krspaceT

With a slam of the Battleguard King's mighty hammer, the leader of the Performapals was shattered.

With a tumble, Yuya was sent flying, crashing to the ground with the sort of thump one just did not get on a motorbike (700-300).

He was down his Mammoth, and all he had left was...

Strong eyed him as Yuya began to uneasily get back on his feet. _**(Yuya continues to fight! How amazing, is this how Sakaki Yusho would have fought all those years ago!?).**_

The narration from a certain promoter was not helping.

Yuya had decided that this loop, he would win without any Pendulum monsters.

After a few loops of heated LDS/You Show rivarly, a few thefts, and a near homicide involving a car that was previously seen in the ownership of Sawatari's father and a slipping Futoshi, Yuya had decided they were just too much trouble.

He could do with a few loops without any of Reiji's schemes. Maybe if he just didn't spontaneously create a summoning style, he might get away with it...

"Why aren't you fighting with all you have?"

The question shattered his thoughts, as Yuya looked up to the unamused looking Strong, his ace monster standing over him like some sort of Stand.

"Wha? Of course I am giving it all I have, it's not like I can Synchro Summon or anything" Yuya decided to say the most truthful lie he could in this situation.

"Do you take me for a fool?" the muscular Power-Duelist questioned harshly "I know what it looks like when a duelist isn't giving it their all, and you are that person, boy"

The crowd began to murmur at that, as Yuya was back in full on his feet, staring at the Champion.

"I know what a person looks like when they are paid to lose, coerced to lose, or lack the will to continue. You, boy, aren't any of these" he stared Yuya down "I can only assume you somehow fear that if you win, you will make your father completely irrelevant as well as more of a coward".

Yuya stiffened at that remark.

"Let me tell you this now boy...you proved yourself better than your father just by stepping foot in this stadium!"

That line sent a shock-wave of murmurs throughout the stadium, but Strong wasn't quite done yet.

"You can't make your father look any better now that you have actually faced me and done well despite your half-effort...now play for real!"

Yuya could feel Yuzu glaring at him from the stands at the end of Strong's tirade, and he felt resigned.

Either Yuzu would give him hell for losing, or he'd have to deal with the fallout from this duel again...

Yuya quickly went for the_ probably_ simpler option...

"My turn, draw!"

And the one that would make Strong stop stating things that had a nugget of truth to them. That...was just weird really.

"I didn't want to use this this duel, seeing as these cards only came into my possession recently, and I still want to iron out their kinks. However, if you insist I fight you 'for real', I can only oblige!" Yuya stated holding up his two cards in hand.

_**(It appears the son of Yusho has hit his second wind)**_ the voice of Nico Smiley rang out across the stadium _**(Is this the start of an amazing comeback!?).**_

Yes, yes it was.

"With the Scale 1 Stargazer Magician, and the Scale 8 Timegazer Magician, I set the Pendulum Scales!"

"The what and the wha!?"

* * *

6.6

Yuya hadn't been expecting anything crazy this loop, so he was pleasantly surprised when he received a call on his duel disk. Seeing who it was didn't change that feeling.

_**Call from: Selena**_

But when he pressed the green button that would let the call filter through, he was not expecting a panicking Serena, frantically yelling something into the duel disk. "**_Yuya, we may have a problem!_**" And before he could ask what was wrong, the familiar yet different and sometimes to be feared voice and face of his fusion counterpart popped up in front of the screen.

"_**Hi Onii-san!**_"

* * *

6.1

Some of the Arc-V tagforce block, and a random loop after. (Might be GX, not sure though...)

6.2

To my knowledge, with the inclusion of Arc-V in the yugioh loops, all legacy characters now have something around a 50% chance to loop into Arc-V instead of their respective loops.

6.3

It'll be a running joke that Gong walks in on them kissing!

6.4

Ping Pong.

6.5

Eh...not really much to say about this one.

6.6

What happened to Yuri? What does Serena mean by 'a problem'?

**Find out...Next time!**

* * *

**A/N Hope you all liked it, and see you in the next one!**


	7. Chapter 7

7.1 dragonraptyr

Yuya blinked Awake just as Nico Smiley walked in.

"I'll do it." He cut off the duel promoter before he could get a word in edgewise. "I'd be more than happy to duel Strong Ishijima, on one condition. Can you get me an audience with Reiji Akaba before tomorrow?"

Nico Smiley nodded in glee. "Certainly! It would be a pleasure!"

Yuzu looked at Yuya with a frown on her face. "Yuya, what are you up to?"

Yuya only smirked. "I'm gonna wow the crowd, but I can't do it alone. As for what's going on, wait and see tomorrow!"

~0~

The rest of his set-up went exactly as intended, and Yuya let the duel with Ishijima play out as it had in baseline. Once again, the surprise of his Pendulum Summons made the crowd gasp in amazement at the unexpected summoning.

Right on cue, Nico Smiley ran up to him.

"That was incredible! Such an unexpected turn of events! Yuya, can you tell us anything about that incredible move you pulled just now?"

Yuya nodded. "I'm afraid that I'm under an NDA at the moment, so I can't say too much. What I can tell you all is that it's called a Pendulum Summon, and is performed with Pendulum cards. Sadly, these cards aren't out on the market yet, but please look forwards to the Maiami City Championships! A big announcement is planned!"

Yuya smirked as the crowd went wild. Time after time, his first Pendulum Summon made the crowd smile, smiles which were quick to turn into frowns when they learned more about Pendulum Summoning. Arranging a meeting with Reiji and offering to let him study the Pendulum cards seemed to be the perfect way to circumvent this. Sure, he couldn't use his Pendulums until the tournament, but he'd been Looping long enough that he didn't need them, and he left the audience breathless and waiting on the edges of their seats for more.

"The fun has just begun!"

* * *

7.2

"So...Yuri activated?" Yuya asked, watching the boy's actions. Serena nodded, blue hair swishing from the motions. "I woke up and was about to leave Academia, but then I found him, or rather, he found me, and...he seemed so confused."

"And you brought him here?"

Serena nodded again. "It was the first thing I could think of."

They both glanced over at the boy again as Yoko pulled into the driveway having come back form shopping. "Well...he called me Onii-san, so he might have started looping from _that_ loop, and considering we were all siblings that loop with me being the eldest..."

"I'll leave this to you, _Onii-san_." Serena said with a smile, and immediately walked out of the room to help Yoko with the groceries.

He again glanced at the purple haired boy sitting on the couch on the other side of the room. En, Core, Kilo, and Watt had sat themselves around him, and he was absentmindedly petting them. Yuya sat next to his, for all intents and purposes, younger brother, before addressing Yuri.

"Well Yuri, I'm sure you're very confused as to why we seemed to have gone back in time and why you have two sets of memories."

The boy focused his sharp purple eyes on his... older brother...but, he scanned his memories again, they were also... _not_ in any way related in the slightest, even by affiliation...and he came from a child-soldier training facility that had taught him to be...he blanched, rather _morally bankrupt_...

He was feeling disgusted with...supposedly who he was... But that didn't make any sense! He'd never been a student of this so called Academia, or done any of the...horrible things he never did but then also did...there was also a lot of guilt that he felt for what happened to countless people, a few of them by _his_ hands that he'd supposedly never even felt before! What the heck was going on?! Suffice to say, he was feeling more than a little lost.

"Fear not though, I'll explain everything, and we'll turn guardian upside down!"

Yuya saw the far off look in his eyes and started pulling stuff out of his subspace pocket.

~0~

Yuya smirked as the boy stared in awe, distracted for the moment at a dazzling projection of a tree took up the entire far side of the wall.

"So there's thing big tree/computer called Yggdrasil and a loooong time ago something attacked it..."

* * *

7.3 krspace/CeleneTheAngel

"...Spin the wheel, spin the wheel, what impossible task will we get this time!"

As Yuya spun the colorful wheel around and around, Yuzu and Gongenzaka looked rather nervous.

"...Yuya...is this really such a good way to alleviate our boredom?" Gong offered as Yuya just laughed.

"Oh come on, a list of somewhat difficult tasks to complete this loop could be fun! Just think of what it might land on for you."

"I have a bad feeling about this..."

**TEACH SAWATARI HOW TO PERFORM IRISH FOLK DANCES**

"...and I knew it." Gong collapsed to the ground in depression even as Yuya spun the wheel once again.

"Yuya...if I have to make Pierre a good person again I swear to Thoth I will dress up like Ruri, kiss you, and send the image to Shun's P.O Box!"

Laughing nervously, Yuya watched the wheel slow down, revealing something else.

**MAKE MIERU OBSESS OVER YAIBA, NOT ME**

Yuzu sighed, at least this wouldn't be so bad.

And with that, Yuya spun the wheel, waiting to see what he'd get this time.

**BEFRIEND ISAO**

"...Challenging...but why not!" Yuya declared with a cheerful fist pump.

Yuzu sighed and shook her head. "You might want to see if he is even allowed to be happy first Yuya."

"Doubtful, but that's why it'll be a fun challenge! Now, a spin for Yuto..." Before he spun the wheel again, he slid in another challenge, and Yuto blanched at it.

Yuto sighed over their mental link, sense of apprehension rising as the wheel started slowing down. "_Yuya I really don't want_ _to..._"

Yuya ignored him though and the wheel actually stopped on the recently slipped in challenge.

**WIN EVERY DUEL WITH A FUSION MONSTER**

* * *

7.4 Author unknown (but it's not me)

"Chazz, do you think something's up with Crowler?" Jaden asked Chazz, who nodded.

"He wasn't mad at…Syria this time for not explaining what a field spell, this time." Chazz, who's wearing his old Obilisk Blue uniform, agreed, showing a bit of distaste at the current name of Syrus, who is a girl, this loop.

"**Jaden Yuki please report to my office!**" the intercom boomed in Crowler's voice. Chazz Jaden blinked at this.

"Ok, I really hope he's not into me…" Jaden said, awkwardly, with Chazz nodding. The fact that Crowler didn't insult Jaden in any way, shape, or form, was cause for alarm.

"I'll follow you." Chazz said.

~0~

"You wanted to see me, Crowler?" Jaden asked as soon as he walked into Crowler's office. He blinked when Crowler ran up to him.

"Jaden, as much as I hate to do so, Please help me! I'm trapped in cycle of repeating this year as well as the next three. I can't take it anymore! You're the Supreme King, right? Please Break this!" Crowler asked/yelled at Jaden who is being Shaken back forth by Crowler during his spiel. Chazz ran in and separated the two.

"Crowler, it's not just you!" Chazz yelled at Crowler who looked angry.

"Chazz, I didn't call you up here, so…" was Crowler said before Chazz interrupted him.

"I wore an Ojama Yellow Costume during my entrance duel with Aster to enter the Pro Dueling Circuit, where Aster also used Destiny End Dragon for the first time!" Chazz yelled out, causing Crowler to gap in surprise.

"But, how…? You're trapped in this cycle too!?" Crowler stated in shock, "then I must…". Crowler started when he was interrupted, by Jaden this time, who got his bearings straight.

"I encourage you to make new strategies, when Bonapart said he figured out how to counter your every move. I also defeated Aster in my second Duel against him with Flare Neos and Spell Calling." Jaden yelled, causing Crowler to breakdown in shock in realization, that Jaden was also trapped. "I know what's going on and so does Chazz. Calm down."

"But then how…?" Crowler started when Chazz interjected.

"Are you familiar with Yggdrasil?" Chazz asked Crowler, who nodded. He didn't study Norse mythology that much, but it was a part of getting his Dueling PhD. "Alright, because it exists, and we're in a cycle because of it being in a state of disarray. To use the long version…"

~0~

"So, basically, these 'Loops' are a safeguard to prevent us from being erased?" Crowler asked rubbing his head.

"Pretty much." Jaden nodded.

"Why me? Wouldn't Alexis be a better choice to Awaken? What about Chumly or…" Crowler shook his body. "Syria?" He asked.

"Alexis and 'Syria'…" Chazz said using air quotes. "Are already Looping. They're just not awake this Loop is all." He explained.

"Plus, we don't know if Chumly is Looping or not." Jaden said, shrugging. Crowler sighed.

"At least, there is one good thing about these Loops for me…". Crowler stated, before giving an evil smile. "I can have a rematch against that blasted cheating bitching fake son of a gun Vampire." He yelled out, clearly still salty about his time as a doll. Jaden and Chazz soon spouted similar grins.

"And I do believe we have a way to help you there…" Jaden stated, before he pulled out a deck from his subspace pocket.

The deck he pocketed from his time as a duel soldier of the Academy of the Fusion Dimension.

* * *

7.5

It had been a very...off few weeks for Reiji Akaba.

Everything he'd been planning had had to be delayed, or completely reworked to account for new variables.

First, most of his potential Lancers had left and had yet to come back, nor had he found any of them on the cameras.

There was also this strange, cloaked man walking around, but whenever he sent anyone out to investigate, they didn't come back or just reported there was no one like that anywhere.

Then the solid vision that was being used for the Maiami championship malfunctioned and blew up the stadium. No one was hurt thankfully.

Because of that, he'd had to delay the battle royale, which could've been dangerous. But Sora Shiunin hadn't been sent back to Academia yet, and no one else from the Fusion Dimension had yet made an appearance. So he figured it could be afforded.

Another of the things he'd had to work around was the planned events around Sakaki Yuya and the boy himself being extremely uncooperative. Sakaki Yuya had come to LDS alone, and the student assigned to duel him, Shingo was given fake Pendulum cards and was refused a duel. His mother had made an attempt to acquire You Show Duel School, but was shut down with so many legal papers, that somehow, she ended up leaving without getting anything done.

Something Reiji had once heard about Murphy's Law came to mind with how all his original plans kept being derailed and had to be remade.

And now the cameras around the city were being disabled one by one. Anyone sent out to deal with it didn't come back.

Reiji sighed and massaged his temples. He had about a dozen and a half more things to handle as president of LDS, not including a hacking problem. Then he could go out and handle this himself seeing as none of his personnel were able to do anything. Well, like that old saying goes, if you want something done right, you just do it yourself.

And speaking of hacking problems, it seemed someone was hacking the mainframe of LDS at that very moment.

~0~

Yuya sat in front of a console grinning as he watched the hacking program do it's job, occasionally typing something in.

He leaned back in his chair, imagining Reiji's reaction to how his plans had been "thwarted" so far.

Actually, Now that he thought about it, the guy probably wasn't too ruffled yet, which only slightly lesseher the sense of satisfaction.

It helped that the hacking program had gotten through LDS' mainframe.

He smirked with his hands behind his head. "Thank _you_ Phantom."

* * *

7.6

"Yuya, are you sure this is safe?"

He didn't even glance back. "Of course it is Yuzu."

The worry in Yuzu's eyes diminished, if only a little.

"Hello Yuya, Yuzu. I the man Gongenzaka got your message to meet here- -" He paused as he saw the exact same sight Yuzu saw.

"...Yuya are you sure setting up this many fireworks is safe?"

The boy rolled his eyes with a grin. "Deja vu. Yuzu asked the exact same thing." He pulled yet _another_ firework out of his pocket, tied it to a stick and stuck it in the ground, the fuse only poking out from the bottom by a couple of inches.

He sat down on the blanket Yuzu had laid on the grass in the center of the dozens of fireworks set up around them, all a safe distance from the blanket. Gong took a seat on his left after that. On his right, Yuzu moved her hand a little towards him, and he wordlessly put his on hers and they held hands.

"How are you going to set them off?" She asked. In response, he snapped his fingers, and one of the fuses lit up with a spark.

The resulting light show in the air had Gong and Yuzu entranced.

One after another, big colorful explosions of light and color filled the sky, giving the three and anyone around for half a mile quite the view.

Eventually though, the fireworks ran out and the firework show came to an end. Yuzu and Gong were smiling as they all sat in the dark, just enjoying the peaceful atmosphere together.

"Well, the sun's gone down. Should we go inside?" Yuzu asked after yawning and realizing how late it had gotten.

"I the man Gongenzaka, agree that we should be getting to bed. Thank you for the fireworks Yuya."

The boy's crimson eyes widened. "Oh, that's right. I almost forgot! I had one more firework to end the night off on." He started rummaging through his subspace pocket. "We'll get to bed after that, I promise."

Then he pulled out another firework-shaped object that they couldn't even make out with how dark it is.

One thing that could be made out was the humongous explosion that rang out as Yuya lit it and it went a few feet up in the air.

~0~

They... weren't in their usual loop after that.

"Where...?" Yuzu asked, surveying the small town they seemed to find themselves in, and the strange equipment they had clipped all around their bodies, loop memories telling them it was "Virtual Maneuvering equipment", and that they had just graduated from a training camp so they could fight the- -

Standing off in the distance away from them towered a 15 meter giant naked human with a wide, permanently grinning face as it lumbered towards them.

Titans.

"Yuya what did you do?!" Yuzu yelled, pulling out the Fan of Doom™. Yuya immediately scrambled backwards avoiding a swing. "I'm sorry! I must've picked up a bomb or something instead of a firework I'LL MAKE IT UP TO YOU I PROMISE JUST DON'T HIT ME WITH THE Fan of Doom™!"

*Swack*

"Not the fan Yuzu! Anything but the fan!"

*Swack*

"Yuya!" Gongenzaka thundered. "Because of you we must now go through a punishment loop!"

"I'm really sorry Gong, Yuzu. I'll do something to make it up to you both." He rubbed the part of his head with the comically sized bump on it.

They were all silent as a roar thundered off in the distance and the large titan was now running towards them at full speed.

Yuzu "hmmmph"ed. "We'll discuss what you can do to make it up to us later."

"We gotta get through an Attack on Titan Loop first though." He said, readying his equipment. From his subspace pocket, he pulled out a rocket launcher aimed at the titan- -

"NO MORE EXPLOSIVES!" Both of his friends yelled at him, to which he sheepishly put the thing away, and with a _hissss_ from their equipment, they all leapt into action.

* * *

7.1

Haha, readers, let me tell you a tale.

I...don't have anything for this.

Someone else wrote it and I got permission to put it here... Wait, did I use this one already? (Little nod to Sao Abridged there, BTW.)

7.2

To sum it all up, Yuri's first loop was a variant that started when all the cast were kids(though not all of them were looping) and just before him and Serena were in Academia. A looping Serena then proceeded to get him and herself as far away from Academia as possible, which was the Standard Dimension where they lived with Yuya for the loop and were siblings. And just because, I'm making Yuya a few years older than the rest of them for that particular loop.(Don't question it, it's the infinite loops)

I am of the firm belief that personality (for the most part) and beliefs are nurture over nature, so needless to say Yuri will be _very _different from some portrayals of him.

7.3

For an added challenge, befriend him _after_ the supposed Fusion Dimension appearance. The /me thing came from the fact that I added the bit with Yuto at the end.

7.4

Eh, it mentions Academia. Pretty sure it counts.

Also, I didn't get down the original author's name when I first found the snip, but then I couldn't re-find it to get the author's name.

So...my apologies author-chan!

7.5

Yuya got bored.

7.6

Heh heh...My attempt at comedy everyone..!

**Happy 4th of July everyone! Please follow, favorite and review, and I'll see you in the next one**!


	8. Chapter 8

**lunaluv22: First off, Thanks for the review! It's very much appreciated.  
****Also, whatever relation to the manga(or lack thereof) there might've been, totally unintentional. Interesting little fact about it though...**

**Sorry for the longer-than-average wait, this chapter just _was not_ working with me.**

**But now, Enjoy!**

* * *

8.1

The elevator went downwards carrying two passengers: Roget and Yuzu, the former muttering to himself.

"That's right...I should have escaped like this without engaging Reiji Akakba." He glanced to an unlooping Yuzu's horrified face. "This one alone should be more than enough to make the professor very happy... I can live a little longer!"

"Will you really?" Someone from outside yelled. Shocked that they could follow him so quickly, Roget looked out the window of the elevator to see Crow and Jack Atlas standing there with their summoned monsters out and ready to pummel him.

"We won't let you get away!" Crow proclaimed. Jack yelled, "You're responsible for throwing the city into chaos! GO! Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend! Absolute Power Flame!" And it broke the elevator with a flaming fist just as the Lancers also entered the room.

This though had the effect of sending both Yuzu and Roget falling, to which an unlooping Jack cursed at his thoughtless decision. Meanwhile, a looping Crow and Yugo saw what was going on and were both taking measure to slow Yuzu's fall down as Yuya summoned whipsnake and swung like Tarzan while his fastest monster, a pink hippo ran down to their level and jumped across, catching both and safely putting them on the other side.

Yuzu had her eyes closed very tightly as he held her, though they opened the minute she realized she was no longer falling to her death.

"Yuya..?" She asked confusedly and almost disbelievingly as he hugged her to him. Not _his_ Yuzu, but still her...It was a confusing thing he tried not to think too much about and would protect her whether she was looping or not. She hugged back tightly with tears in her eyes. Everyone watching was smiling at the touching reunion. Even Reiji and Shun looked oddly satisfied.

Except for one person, and speaking of the piece of shit himself, he had managed to grab onto one of the ledges, and was currently climbing towards the group, growling "You think I will let it end this way?"

"He survived?" Sawatari asked in astonishment. Yuya rolled his eyes at the man's persistence, and while everyone was distracted, he took the opportunity to free Yuzu of her handcuffs via carefully burning the lock off and deactivating them, though not quite breaking them. They would turn on again when put on someone else's wrists.

"The reason I built this dimensional transport wasn't merely to return to the fusion dimension! When I learned of Academia's invasion, I made it so the city could move itself through Dimensions!"

"What?!"

"The city itself?!" Jack and Crow yelled respectively while Crow noted that Arc-V had some messed up villains in it as they observed Roget laughing like a maniac to himself.

While Shun was five seconds from Air hiking and Calibur'ing Roget's ass, and Yuya was five seconds from throwing a fireball at him, Crow was the first to move, and pin Roget to the wall while pointing a lightsaber at his throat.

"Oh no you don't!" He said while the blade of the lightsaber came out, a dark, smokey ash color, and Roget was smart enough not to move an inch lest some part of him be gouged out.

Yuya walked over, observing the blade for a second. "A blackwing crystal?" He asked, while smiling at how the name seemed to fit Crow. The guy sent him a smile back and they said in unison,

"Star Wars loop." And laughed while Shun chuckled like they were sharing an inside joke. Yuya took the handcuffs he'd gotten off of Yuzu and put them on Roget. Both smirking, he and Crow high-fived and dragged Roget back over to the other Lancers.

Crow held him up to Reiji.

"So what should we do with him?"

* * *

8.2 Seihai-kun

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!"

Yuya recently was suffering from something that affected all loopers once in a while: boredom.

"As you can all see, I'm in a big pinch! There are no more Action Cards in sight! And my poor Odd-Eyes Dragon is so tired from all this running around!" Yuya patted the dragon on which he was mounted, who promptly made a big yawn and did some very dramatically sluggish steps. "Even if there were Actions Cards, I'm not sure we could reach them in time!"

So he asked the older Yugioh loopers for suggestions and got one of using a specific type of card or strategy that's very difficult in every single duel, like summoning Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth or Zushin.

"And on the other side of the field is Strong Ishijima's Ace Monster, Battleguard King! If I take his attack, I'll definitively lose!"

"Heh, you have the flair for dramatic, just like your father." Strong admitted, impressed with the way Yuya's Entertainment Duel has drawn the audience so far. "BUT! You still have 4 cards in your hand! Can you really call that a pinch?"

"These four cards on their own... are completely useless!" Yuya declared, showing his hand for all to see. Both Strong and the audience seeing the zoomed hand on the big screens were shocked.

"That's ridiculous!" "Are those cards..." "He really wants to do THAT?" 4 Normal Monsters were there. A left arm, a right arm, a left leg, and a right leg.

"Only one card can save me now. Will my deck answer me? Now ladies and gentlemen! This is the draw that will decide my fate!"

"DESTINY DRAW!"

"AND IT'S HERE!" He raised the last card. The audience went crazy upon seeing a miracle taking form before their eyes. "The final piece of the puzzle, the last key on the seal of the Forbidden One!" A giant magic pentagram appeared in the air and the ancient stone giant started leaving its seal.

"Exodia, OBLITERATE!"

_Stalling Strong for so long was really hard but seeing the audience like this was completely worth it! _Yuya thought while he bowed to the audience, which was applauding and screaming at his performance. _My Entertainment Dueling is going to grow a lot with this challenge! This loop is going to be awesome!_

~0~

"I hate this loop." And the very first duel against Academia was already a failure on the challenge. "Stupid Academia guys pulling the _exact same_ hand and cheesing with burn damage, I bet those duel disks are rigged..."

* * *

8.3 Remnants of Earth

If they were supposed to get information in Junior's bar, they were doing a pretty shit job of it. Why weren't they interrogating the owner? According to Yang, that ALWAYS worked.

"We **_are_** in Junior's bar to help with reconnaissance?" Yuya asked Yaiba just to be sure.

Yaiba nodded while sipping some kind of rainbow drink. Yuya eyed it slightly dubiously. "That isn't alcoholic, is it?"

Yaiba gave the drink a glance before shrugging. Yuya was staring at Yaiba incredulously now. "It's bad enough we're wearing these ridiculous outfits, if you get drunk- -"

"Relax, if it's alcoholic I'm not gonna drink enough to get buzzed. And these clothes help us to blend in- -"

"Having fun?"

They both turned around in utter surprise. Yuya cursed on the Egyptian Gods for not noticing Torchwick approaching them.

"Uh?" he said, almost stumbling on his words. "Yeah… sure. This is the best!" He deepened his voice slightly to try and throw them off, though it probably wouldn't work. And it would appear he was right, as Roman looked like he was trying not to laugh.

"And your friend?" Torchwick asked, finally turning to look at them fully, since Yaiba was too short to notice from the corner of his eyes. Speaking of his temporary partner, Yaiba was still holding the drink and barely nodding in response to his question, his head bumping up and down with the beat of the music.

It was that moment that another guy decided to come over there and he took but one look at the boys before he whistled with a grin on his face.

"Aren't you supposed to be at school?" he asked, scratching his chin and finally giving into laughter when Yaiba spat his drink , though Yuya tried to remain calm and resisted the urge to jump. The man next to Torchwick shook his head, clearly accustomed to this. Torchwick himself grasped the counter and another fit of laughter came out of him.

"Relax, I assure you that if I were to report you to the police, they'd be far more concerned with putting him in jail," the other man said in between giggles at Yaiba's slightly fearful looks. "A couple of prep school runaways in a bar are way below their list of priorities, especially now."

"Prep school?" Yaiba asked almost indignantly, which Yuya half wanted to strangle him for, but was also relieved they'd gotten that wrong.

"Oh, come on, don't feel too disappointed. The first time is always like that, and your grandpa's clothes don't do shit to make you look older, not with those huge eyes full of dreams and hopes," Torchwick said, blowing some more smoke before continuing. "A tip for next time, don't try too hard. Especially with the clothes. Also, a bit of make-up does wonders for the eyes."

They just nodded, though one of them would have commented and/or made fun of his eyeliner if they both weren't accutely aware that they needed to _**get out**__._ Yuya motioned to stand and leave, pulling out some Lien for the drink Yaiba hadn't finished but _had_ taken a sizable chunk out of. Roman pulled out one of his stolen cards and passed it to Gallagher. "Let me pay for it, boys," he started and nodded to the other man who left after passing the card. "I feel generous today."

"R-right, thank you," both said at the same time.

"Yaiba... let's go." Yuya said, nudging him and gesturing to the exit, hand still on his weapon.

But before they could get more than a few steps away, Torchwick said, "By the way… another thing worth remembering is not assuming that all grownups are gullible fools," he advised them before snapping his fingers.

In no time, the two were surrounded by the group of faunus, and humans dressed in red, and they both turned to look at Torchwick, well Yaiba looked at him, Yuya's bangs were hiding a glare. Yuya remembered the few times he'd seen Yang beat these guys up... Except they weren't just the guys Yang would sometimes fight at the bar, they were White Fang.

Speaking of the White Fang, where were Yuto, Shun, Crow, Ruri, or Rin when ya needed them?

"Is this a good start?" Torchwick asked to the big guy who was eyeing up the kids, particularly to the one wearing leather.

"Yes, this will do… for now," he answered, cracking his neck on both sides and then his knuckles. Roman felt a little too delighted to see the terror in their faces.

"You bastar-" Yaiba started and Roman walked to both of them, his Cudgel in hand, pointing at his chest.

"Tsk, tsk, language. Didn't your parents teach you about that?" he asked and looked at Yuya, currently scanning the room for an exit with the corner of his eyes and the barest movements of his head. "How about you? I would have thought so… after all, isn't Yusho Sakaki the quintessential gentleman?"

He gave a disbelieving look despite the overwhelming chances of Torchwick, along with everyone else in Vale knowing about that. And Torchwick had to stifle yet another laugh before hooking his chin with his fingers on his chin, forcing him to look up. It took much of his willpower not to slap his hand away.

"Now don't look so surprised," he started, lighting another cigarette. "You took me and my colleagues for fools after all…Take this as another lesson, a practical one, Yuya Sakaki."

"How…How did you know?" he asked, his hand sneaking to his waist holder, although Torchwick's eyes flicked to that spot, so he knew he wasn't looking for an actual answer.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. Don't you wish to know why your father was targeted? Isn't that why you came all the way down here from Beacon?" he questioned.

Yuya's hand froze in place to give the appearance of him realizing he needed that information. Really though, the White Fang targeted the Valeris Hall, his father was standing _IN THE MIDDLE_ of the Valeris Hall on the stage. How could they _not_ hit him?

Of course, it could also be _so_ much more complicated than that, with an ultimate plan that involved the disappearance of Heartland, the White Fang, his father's fame, the secrets the people in power seemed to be hiding such as the one with the four boys and girls that look the same(though it didn't look like it had anything to do with the Maidens this loop), including Ozpin, Ironwood/_Maybe_ Leo Akaba, Roget, whoever the guy from Vacuo was, and his _dead mother_, of all things... It could be well on its way to being Kingdom Hearts levels of complicated, but he figured he'd go with Occam's razor on this one.

Thinking he wasn't gonna attack, Torchwick finally put distance between them. And he was sorta right...he wouldn't be attacking with his _weapon_ right now.

Still, just to be safe, he still had Melodic Cudgel aimed at them, finger on the trigger,. Yuya had the suspicious feeling that he wasn't feeling too loopy this time around, so started planning escape by whispering to Yaiba,

"_Hey, Yaiba. I'm gonna make a distraction, and then we run for it._"

Before Yaiba could question anything, he raised a hand, lit a spark

and a loud *BOOM* rang through the bar as the flares and fire crystals in Roman's cane activated. Torchwick went flying, the man next to him staggered a few feet back, smoke filled the area, and Yuya held Yaiba's forearm in a death-grip as he used his agility semblance to nimbly get around or through the White Fang members standing in their way. Yaiba at least took the hint, or was acting on instinct and was swacking members out of their way where he could.

When they reached the exit, it was to find _another_ group of White Fang, and Junior's men in red surrounding them, weapons aimed.

Jesus these guys really went all out. Did they anticipate they'd be able to make their way through the first group? That is if they even tried to escape in the first place...Yuya had a feeling that his in-loop self would have taken Roman's offer to "find out why they targeted his father" at Valeris Hall.

The door opened behind them, and the mass of troops they'd dodged around earlier, plus Torchwick and the other guy stood there, none looking worse for wear.

Of course. They had aura.

Yuya nervously eyed the sheer amount of White Fang and club men surrounding them on all sides. Including Torchwick, who'd consistently been able to handle multiple Huntsmen in training at once, and had _yet_ to be caught by the trained Huntsmen under Vale's authority.

It seemed Yaiba wholeheartedly agreed with him that they wouldn't be able to fight their way out of this one.

There wasn't a way out...except up, maybe. Wait..!

**He** _could_ go up! but...

"_Yaiba..?_" He whispered as they stood back to back.

"_Y-yeah..?_" Yaiba asked, rather intimidated by the sheer amount of people surrounding them.

"_I need you to close your eyes_."

Yaiba gave him a bewildered look. "_What are you- -?_"

"_I know you know about 'that thing'._" That thing, being Berserk Mode. Though it wasn't quite known by that in this loop.

There was silence, except for Torchwick talking.

"Now that you two little romps are finally sitting still..." He turned to the other guy and asked again if they were enough. Yuya didn't care to listen to the response.

"_Now, you can make it up to me for not telling me you knew, by listening to my instructions._"

Yaiba nodded, body mostly frozen.

Yuya cleared his throat **very** loudly. Then yelled, "Ladies and Gentlemen! Faunus and humans alike!" He rather liked seeing the bewildered and confused faces of the White Fang, Junior's club guys and Torchwick and the other guy.

"As you can see, me and my friend here are cornered! Stuck between a rock and a hard place! There's no escape for us..."

"_Yuya, what are you..?"_

"...Or is there?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Well kid, you have a flair for the dramatic like your dad. I'll give you that."

_"Now, Yaiba, close your eyes, don't open them for **anything**, and we'll be flying, just thought I'd give you a heads up. So hold on, and **DON'T****. LET. ****GO.**_"

"Now the guy we'll be taking you both to- -"

"I wasn't finished." He cut Torchwick off. "You see, things look hopeless for us, but there is always a way out! Which I will show you all now! Behold Yuya Sakaki's disappearing trick!"

With a flash and a bang filling the immediate area with smoke created by his fire magic and the dust in his weapon, it would appear to everyone who didn't know where to look, that they indeed disappeared.

"Look, up there!" One of the White Fang members shouted, and they all looked up to see a large red, winged dragon with Yaiba sitting on it's back and clinging to it . It breathed a plume of fire that arched through the sky in a swirling of the reds and yellows that make up fire, fading into sparkling smoke.

Some of the less professional White Fang members 'oohed' or 'ahhed' at the display, dragons being mythological creatures and all.

The ones that knew what they were doing opened fire.

Bullets which did absolutely nothing to impede the dragon and the boy's escape.

Eventually, feeling the rush of wind, Yaiba would've been hard-pressed to keep his eyes closed. But despite the burning(no pun intended) curiosity, he figured he owed Yuya that much, and so kept them squeezed shut for as long as he could bear it.

He only opened them when he _just couldn't take it anymore_, and probably thought he was dreaming when he found himself riding on a fairly small red _dragon_ of all things, high above the clouds giving them a magnificent view of Vale.

As the brunette scanned the city putting everything else aside and thinking he'd question Yuya on where the dragon came from later, he spotted a familiar mop of pink and two mops of gray hair down in a park near the CCT.

~0~

"'Wait for us in the park where Ironwood is going to give a speech. Me and a dragon will pick you up"?" Yuzu quietly said to Reiji when she discreetly checked her scroll when the Atlas soldier standing next to them looked up at his superior's hologram.

"Well, we've been here since Ironwood started his speech. Now what did Yaiba mean by a dragon?" Yuzu murmured to herself. Reiji had a suspicion, not a solid one since he wasn't even sure if he'd even really seen Yuya do it in that other loop. But it was the best explanation for what that could mean. Now what were they going to do to signal them- -?

It would appear they didn't have to wonder any longer, because there were a couple of screams and shouts, people moving away from their area as a smoking, red...something came barreling down towards the plaza from the sky at an astonishing speed. At the last moment, the thing opened it's wings and what landed in front of them all was a red, winged dragon with one crimson red eye and the other an emerald green. It was on the smallish side but with it's wings flared like that it seemed a lot bigger than it currently was.

And there was a boy perched on it's back.

There were wide-eyed stares as the dragon majestically stood on it's hind legs for a second, before steam started filling the area out of nowhere, enough of it to fog the area over so everything more than foot away was practically unseeable.

Yaiba was next to them, pulling them towards the creature. Having a pretty good suspicion who the dragon was, Reiji whispered in the its ear "_Extreme heat or cold to the middle of the handcuffs will fry the circuitry..._" it was then that the handcuffs the Atlas soldier put on them suddenly heated up and cracked. To which he, and Yuzu especially, gratefully tossed the parts off.

"Hold on for your life guys!" Yaiba said, already tightening his grip as the red-scaled wings flexed.

"Wait!" Yuzu cried. "I have so many questions..." Yaiba cut her off. "Save them. We'll question Yuya, wherever he is, later." Reiji chose not to tell them _exactly_ where Yuya was now.

"Okay, but can it even carry us?" It was a pretty good question to ask. After all the dragon was fairly small in size, an they barely fit on its back as it was.

"Hey, can you carry all of us?" Yaiba, the one closest to its head asked.

The dragon looked at them, hetero-chromatic eyes gleaming with something that seemed faintly like amusement, underlayed by incoming exhaustion though it seemed like it was trying not to show that. It snorted, and gave what may have been a toothy grin, almost as if saying "Try me." And they all just hung on as the wings flapped, sending large gusts of wind over everyone in the park and blowing away the steam. By the time visibility was possible though, they were above the clouds and out of sight. And everyone who witnessed that was left wondering if they had just imagined things.

Though Aster Phoenix, the Atlas soldier who was originally intending to bring Yuzu and Reiji in for sneaking out of Beacon would notice the two had slipped away. And he would _not_ be a happy camper. Realizing this, Yuzu and Reiji smiled and Yuya, snorting out smoke and fighting off exhaustion, soared off back to Beacon.

* * *

8.4

"What the heck is this?" Yuzu asked to herself, holding up the WANTED poster on the wall. It portrayed a fluffy white cat-bunny thing with a red ring on it's back, golden rings hovering above and not quite touching it's...ears coming from its...other ears, a fluffy white tale, and soulless pink eyes.

"Kyubey…" She read to herself. Honestly, the thing looked quite adorable and she probably would have wanted to hug it if not for what the wanted poster was claiming it did, and just how sheerly high the actual bounty was.

_**WANTED**_:

**Kyubey **

**Capture alive for 100 Million Poke Bounty, 2 Million Credit Bounty**

**_\- A Malicious Looping Entity or MLE responsible for the destruction of the Puella Magi universe by tricking its anchor into ascension, and countless other attempts to _****_contract with the females of any given loop and ascend to write entropy out of the multiverse, which will therefore cause hundreds more loops to collapse along with the loop he ascends in._**

**_If found, please detain from any contact with the loop's residents until the loop ends._**

Yuzu's breath hitched as she read. How such a small, cute looking entity could be so dangerous...

And if there was a wanted sign in their loop, does that mean that he's _in_ their loop?

Rushing back to You Show to get her dueldisk and make a few calls, Yuzu would make sure to keep both eyes open for it.

~0~

Ruri and Rin had already been captured by the time Serena woke up. She'd checked but it didn't seem that Yuri was awake this loop which made her heart sink a little. Sora was already in Standard, so it looked like she'd be escaping by herself this time around.

She also felt pretty bad for the other bracelet girls, who were almost always in cages in their loop. She half-heartedly thought it was a good thing they weren't looping, so they wouldn't have to infinitely put up with being caged, since she usually had to flee Academia as soon as possible. Ever since Zarc and Ray were Grima-patched to be safe, they'd given up hope on either of their two dimensional counterparts ever starting to loop.

Of course, finding the Wanted poster on the wall put any immediate thoughts aside as she scanned over the picture of the fluffy cat-bunny thing, the bounty, and the description of its crimes.

Before she could read it over in more detail though a quick skim of its contents already proved very alarming, a flash of pink and white caught Serena's eye.

She quickly turned her head, but only caught a quick glimpse of a fluffy, pointed tail.

Eyes widening in possible recognition, she cursed before running over to the spot and quickly scanning the corridor, but it seemed to have disappeared. Then her dueldisk rang.

"Yuzu? What's up?"

"_You need to know about a fluffy white bunny, cat thing called Kyubey..._"

Serena was walking along the corridor as Yuzu described the figure on the wanted poster and similar ones she'd seen in Standard. She glimpsed another of the posters on a bunch of other walls. "Yeah, there's wanted posters over here, too. And Yuzu..?"

"_Yes Serena?_"

"I think Kyubey's over here in Academia."

There was a clatter on the other end and Serena thought Yuzu might have dropped something.

"_Sora's already over here...Is Yuri awake?_"

Serena sighed. "No...no, I'm alone."

The line went quiet for a second, Serena thought maybe Yuzu was talking to someone else.

"_Serena,_" Someone else was talking now, and Yuya's face appeared in front of the screen. "_Try to capture Kyubey before he can contract with anyone, get Asuka to help, if she's_ awake."

"Who's Asuka?"

_Asuka Fubuki. She said she's a student at Academia who left when she found outI'm gonna get Yuto, Yugo and everyone else, and we'll be over there to help you search._""

"Got it." She tugged out from her subspace pocket an item that would let her avoid anyone the professor sent after.

And Serena started running around Academia, keeping an eye out for a fluffy white bunny cat MLE on the loose.

~0~

Meanwhile...

~0~

"You can really do that?"

_"Of course. I can make any one wish come true. In return, you'll form a contract with me, and become a magical girl!"_

She had a thoughtful look on her face. "And what's a contract?"

_"It's an agreement between us. I'll grant you a single wish, anything you want, and in return you'll become a magical girl who fights witches, creatures that bewitch and bespell humans to kill themselves.."_

Ruri nodded her head in understanding. "So by getting my wish granted, I'll be able to use magic, but I'll have to use it to fight these witches?"

"_Yes, but you'll be able to escape from this place, and perhaps get back to your home._" The creature fluffed its...dual ears coming out of its cat ears. "_You know, you're quite curious. Not many of the people I contract with ask so many questions.__ And I figured, since you were captured after your home was ravaged, you'd be willing to make a wish as soon as possible._"

"This...all just seems too incredible to be real..."

It shook its head. "_Well, I can't stay here forever, so make your decision now._"

There was little need to think over it. "I'll do it." She said.

Kyubey had a pleased lilt to its mental voice. "_Very well, then._"

A purple light began to shine in the space of Academia's prison

"I...I just want this senseless war to end...I don't know why Academia destroyed my home, but I just want everything to be back to the way it was." Before the fear and the stress, and the sleepless nights worrying whether they were going to make it or not...the fear of losing more and more people each day, of losing their remaining friends and whatever family they had left. There were tears leaking from her pinkish-purplish eyes as she though about how her brother had gone from a kind polite young man into the wary and mistrustful

A light began to glow from her chest, and Kyubey's ears lifted up, acting like hands as it reached towards her chest Pain wracked her body, but slowly faded as a jeweled egg-shaped object hovered in front of her. "_Then, Ruri Kurosaki, accept your destiny_."

She cupped the stone to her chest, and it was done.

~0~

"Okay, we're here at Academia." Yuya called to the other loopers, both from their loop and sometimes other yugioh loops as they arrived in the fusion dimension. The people they brought consisted of Yuya, Yuzu, Gong, Shun, Yuto, Kaito, Crow, Jack, Yugo, and Sora. Yuto pulled a bunch of Academia uniforms and obelisk force helmets, and Yugo started handing them out.

"Whoever can't pass as a student, stay outside and make sure Kyubey can't escape!" Yuzu called, handing out the wanted posters she'd gathered up. The loopers from other yugioh universes. "Asuka and Serena are already inside, but they haven't found him yet so...we'll have to help out!"

It was also at that moment that everyone got their helmets and stolen uniforms on.

"Hey, these outfits are pretty cool! I mean, **I'm** pretty used to it by now, but you guys don't look half bad. I'm sure that MLE will drop dead on sight of us- -"

Whatever the guy could say was interrupted by Yugo yelling and then disappearing in a flash of light.

And then a quarter of Academia blew up. They all stared in shock before someone finally spoke up.

"Yeah...I think we'll need a lot more than just cool uniforms to get out of this one unscathed..."

* * *

8.5 jxz

"... And that's why I'm here hidden." Yusho finished his explanation, as both Alexis and Yuzu looked at him with various grades of confusion and sickness.

"... So, let me get this straight..." Alexis started. "You had Yuya..."

"Yes."

"And then you escaped to Synchro to avoid paying alimony..." Yuzu continued.

"Exactly."

"And then it happened again and you escaped to Xyz and then here..."

"Correct."

"... And the reason Leo is doing the Dimensional War is..."

"Because he wants to make me an intervention." The Entertainment Duelist said. "He said, 'If you don't return with your women and your children I'll join the dimensions and I'll make you join them', but I thought he was kidding!"

The two loopers stared at him.

Then Yuzu answered with a laser blast.

"Star Wars loop?" Alexis asked, looking at the Standard duelist.

"Star Wars loop." Yuzu answered.

* * *

8.1  
Crow with a Blackwing kyber crystal lightsaber.  
Yggdrasil loves it's irony.

Also, _Star Wars Loop._

8.2  
There's a couple instances of the other Yugioh anchors doing challenges like this in Leonite's story. Exodia's pretty well known, of course.

8.3  
Once again, GO READ Roses Bride's STORY! It's AWESOME!

Also, I **_love_** dragon Yuya!

8.4  
And so...the most infamous of MLE's comes to bat. How will our loopers handle this one?

8.5

_Star Wars loop._

(_Y'know, one of the ideas I pitched to get my friend interested in the infinite loops, was that I could have Yuto and Yuri in Hogwarts, and Yugo in Star Wars. Just thoughts for the future._) And you've already stopped reading haven't you..?

No doubt the multiverse would have given plenty of different reasons for why Yushou left...(When Leonite was still posting, it was before that was really brought to light, so it was likely a point of contention regarding the consistency of factors in just about every loop before expansions prove...

I mean this isn't **anywhere _near_** Kingdom Hearts complicated, but you do need to know at least a few terms beforehand. More than others depending on the writer. Most of which are told in the very first chapter of any given loop story!

If you've bothered to red this far, I applaud you! Now go read a few other loop stories.

* * *

**In all honesty, I might have to do postings every other week instead of every week. Despite being "overseen" and occasionally(rarely) assisted from the people on the spacebattles forum, (supposedly) I've been doing this mostly by myself, and my creative well isn't bottomless...**

**Basically...I make even less guarantees on the consistency of chapter releases from here on out.**

**But I'm at least getting to 10.**

**I'M AT LEAST GETTING TO TEN!**

**Thanks for reading and see you in the next one!**


	9. Chapter 9

**hnh058513:**** From what I've heard from the people on Spacebattles, Ai was just angry and lashing out. Not evil. Also, from what I understand Grima Patches are for matters of the soul-linked loopers, like for loopers who are interconnected to the bad guy who could potentially be an ascension hazard and/or Leonite just doesn't want to deal with. *COUGHCOUGHzarcCOUGH***

**Apologies for the wait.  
**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

9.1 OathToOblivion

"You have got to be kidding me," Tristan decided as he looked over at the imposing figure of Zarc.

_Why am I even here?! I'm not much of a duelist, and even Yugi, Kaiba, and Joey have trouble with this guy!_ He began freaking out internally. _I threw this deck together in five minutes because I was bored!_

**"Are you going to actually play, or should I destroy you now?"** Zarc called out impatiently.

"H-Hey, don't rush me!" Tristan yelled back.

_Okay, come on, Tristan, you've seen bigger miracles happen, maybe you can beat this guy!_

_...Who am I even kidding?_ he gulped, even as he drew his hand.

The first Card made him pause, the second Card made him blink. The third Card made him widen his eyes. The fourth Card mad his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline.

"No...you can't be...I put this in here as a joke," he said in disbelief. With trepidation, he drew out his last Card...and his lips curled into a smile, a chuckle breaking through the tension.

"Pff...no...pa ha ha ha ha haahahahahaha!" he started laughing, tears coming to his eyes as he shook, relaxing from the tension he'd been under.

**"What's so funny?!"** Zarc demanded suspiciously, narrowing his eyes.

"Hehe...I guess...the Heart of the Cards really was with me on this one!" Tristan decided, wiping a tear away from his eyes, before looking up at Zarc with a smirk. "I win."

**"WHAT?!"**

"Yeah, that's right! I win! And you wanna know why? Because god or no god, you can't do a damn thing against this!" he declared, turning his hand around to reveal what it is...causing Zarc to violently flinch.

The complete set of Exodia's pieces stared back at him.

**"No...no No NO NO!**" Zarc recoiled in fright. **"I can't lose!"**

"News flash, you just did!" Tristan overrode his denial.

He didn't have to do it, but he spread Exodia's pieces over the Monster Zones of his Duel Disk. A 10-sided star appeared in front of him, Exodia's limbs and head appearing through it, shackled to something behind it. With a groan, the chains shattered as Exodia fully stepped into reality.

Tristan pointed up. "Exodia...OBLITERATE!"

Energy grew in Exodia's hand...before it raised it up, firing it forward, inundating Zarc with its awesome power

**"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo**ooooooooo-!" Zarc yelled out as the power washed over him.

Zarc LP: 4000 - 0

As the energy washed away as the duel ended, where Zarc once stood was a dazed Yuya, lying on the floor.

"What just...happened?" he asked in confusion, before falling unconscious.

* * *

9.2

Night 1

Sora's eyes adjusted to being in a dimly lit office looking area. Across from him on the wall was a poster that said "celebrate" that features three creepy animal robots. To his right and left there were two sets of two buttons, one labeled "Lights" the other labeled "Door." He realized he'd had a magazine in his hand, and there was a quiet buzzing sound from the fan across from him. After a moment of observation he checked his loop memories.

He was here in this place called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza on the night shift. The clock next to him read 12:00, and he had to just sit here until 6:00. Easy Peasy.

Granted, the big doors and buttons and camera system were cause for concern, but this job was supposed to be completely safe...

...The article _did_ mention dismemberment right? He wondered, idly noting that he couldn't reach his subspace pocket or access any out-of-loop abilities.

He was on guard just in case. Because of that, when the phone next to him started ringing, he nearly jumped out of his seat. Or at least he would have, if he could even move from his seat.

"Uh hello? Hello?!" Came a voice over the phone. "Hello?" Sora said into the- - "Uh...I wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night. Um, I actually wokred in that office before you, finishing up my last week now as a matter of fact."

Sora put the phone down and let the message play. Who kinows? Maybe when the guy who left it stops meandering about, he'd tell him what the heck he was supposed to be doing.

"So I know it can be a bit overwhelming, but I came to tell you there's nothing to worry about. You'll be fine! Now there's an introductory greeting from the company that I'm supposed to read. It's kind of a legal thing, you know.

Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a magical place for kid and grownups alike. Where fantasy and fun come to life. Fazbear Entertainment is not responsible for damage to property, or person. Upon discovering the damage or death has occurred, a missing persons report will be files within 90 days- -" Sora mostly tuned it out. He wasn't interested in the technical mumbo jumbo.

"- -Blah Blah blah" And apparently neither was the guy over the recording. "Now, that sounds bad, I know, I know, but there's really nothing to worry about. " That still wasn't reassuring in the slightest.

Uh the animatronic characters _do_ get a bit quirky at night, but do I blame them? No! If I was forced to sing those stupid same songs for 20 years, and I never got a bath, I'd probably be a bit irritable at night too.

Remember, these characters hold a special place in the hearts of children, you should show them a little respect.

So just be aware, Now, the robots do tend to..._wander a bit_."

The robots walk around at night, good to know.

"Uh, I think it's some kind of free-roaming mode. eh something about their servos locking up- -" And Sora was tuning it out the technobabble, and listening to the sounds in the building around him. So far nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

"- -they used to be allowed to walk around during the day too, but then there was the bite of 87..." The Bite of 87? "Yeah, it's amazing how the human body can live without the frontal lobe."

Sora swore a shiver went up his spine and he checked the cameras to make sure nothing had happened, but no, the three animatronics were in the same place as they had been this entire time, staring lifelessly at some wall he couldn't see and not moving.

"Now, concerning your safety, the only _real_ risk to you as the night watchmen here, if any, is the fact that these characters...well, if they happen to see you after hours, probably won't recognize you as a person. They'll most likely see you as a metal endoskeleton without it's costume on. Now since that's against the rules here at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, they'll probably try to..."

Try to what?

"...Forcefully stuff you inside a Freddy Fazbear's suit. " _**WHAT?!**_

"Now, that wouldn't be so bad, if the suits themselves weren't filled with wires and animatronic devices, especially around the facial area. So you can see how having your head forcefully shoved into those could cause a bit of...discomfort."

Understatement of the century. So he just had to sit here, and make sure no robots snuck up on him. Still sounded pretty easy... "The only parts of you that would likely see the lights of day are your eyeballs and teeth, pop out the front of the mask..."

...Okay, make **_extra_** sure no robots sneak up on him. What the heck?!

"Yeah, they don't tell you those things when you sign up...

But hey, first day should be a breeze! I'll check with you tomorrow, remember to close the doors only if _absolutely necessary_, it drains power. Alright, goodnight!"

The recording stopped and Sora was left alone with his thoughts. He idly flicked through the cameras, but the three animatronics hadn't so much as creaked yet.

And that's how it went for the whole night, until the clock was about to tick 6:00, and he checked the camera once more.

This time the animatronics HAD moved. All three of them stared at the camera, sending a shiver up Sora's spine as a bell tolled, signifying it was over.

For now.

* * *

9.3 dragonraptyr

Yuya stretched, looking around at the now-familiar walls of Duel Academy. "Another GX loop. Glad it's not Academia again." Focusing, he sent out a ping, and was rewarded with two responses. "Wonder who it is..."

Taking a moment to check the color of his jacket - a creamy yellow, this time - he started walking towards the main campus, keeping his eye out for fellow Loopers. Idly, he pulled a pack of cards out of his Pocket, thumbing through them idly.

"Yuya." Chazz walked up, and glanced over at the cards that Yuya was looking over. Catching sight of one, he frowned. "Thinking about the new cards that have been showing up?"

Yuya nodded. "And back to my first loop here. How you and Alexis had a bet running that there would be an Anchor who used Pendulums. And with these cards appearing, it's only a matter of time before we see an Anchor who uses Links."

Chazz scoffed. "Relax. If things go the way that they did last time, then we've got several thousand loops before the new Anchor shows up. Besides, your baseline isn't even done yet. Thoth might not be the brightest Admin in the bunch, but even he knows better than to go activating baselines willy-nilly." Grinning, Chazz hooked an arm around Yuya's shoulders, pulling the boy into a hug. "Besides. You've got a lot of practice to do so that you make a good Senpai to the new guy."

Yuya gave a tentative smile. "Fine." he mock-grumbled. "But if we do get a new Anchor - what do you think their hair's going to look like?"

"Is that a bet?" Chazz asked innocently.

Yuya smirked in answer. "It is now."

"Oh, you are SO on!"

* * *

9.4 Wheenesss

It was a seemingly baseline loop for Yusei Fudo. Right now, he was facing an unawake Paradox alongside an unawake Yugi and Jaden once again. So he decided to keep this simple.

"When wishes cluster about the the envoy of the gales, those wishes will become an unbreakable shield! Synchro Summon! Appear now, Junk Gardna!"

The Level 6 Synchro Monster appeared in defense position. (2600 DEF)

"Synchro Summon...?" Atem was confused as his ally performed a summoning he'd never heard of before. Must be a future thing...

"Aw yeah! Nice job, Yusei!" Jaden gave a grinning thumbs up at his ally.

"Wait, how does that work?" Atem asked.

Yusei stopped for a moment. Usually, the pharaoh didn't ask about Synchro Summoning. He just accepted that it was a thing in the future and moved on.

In a moment of whimsy, the Signer debated telling the unawake Looper about Synchro Summoning just to see what would happen. He usually didn't do things like that, but what was life without little moments of randomness? What would an unawake Atem even do with the knowledge anyway? He wasn't like Yuma, who can make new cards on a whim with Shining Draw.

So, Yusei decided to tell him.

"Synchro Summoning is the dominant method of extra deck summoning in my time. Fusion still exists, but it is much rarer. To Synchro Summon, you require a tuner monster and non-tuner monsters who's Levels add up to the Level of the Synchro Monster you want to summon..." Yusei began to explain.

(Later On...)

Yusei internally facepalmed, now that he was back in the present, at the information now available about the King of Games on the internet.

'_I really should have seen this coming.'_ he thought to himself.

Yugi Muto was now the person who pioneered Synchro Summoning, decades too early. Apparently, he had used The Eye of Timaeus to create a Tuner Fusion variation of Kuriboh, which he used with Buster Blader to create a Synchro Monster called Buster Dragon. Seto Kaiba quickly followed with The Fang of Critias, and Pegasus had been so entranced by the idea that he started mass producing his own.

He wondered if there would be a punishment loop for this...

* * *

9.5 dragonraptyr

Syrus sprinted down the hall. He'd passed this class hundreds of times, knew the material in and out, but still... being tardy was always a bad habit, even for time-travelling supernaturally powered Duelists.

If he hadn't looped in so much, he would have missed the guards standing on either sideof a hall closet, like they were guarding some kind of prison. All of the cleaning supplies had been pulled out and stacked to one side, rather haphazardly. Curious, Syrus pulled out one of his many cloaking devices, and activated it with the flick of a wrist. Invisible, he slipped between the guards, and peered through the window.

Inside, two boys were sitting on hastily set up cots, watching the door warily. Neither one dared to look away, and occasionally, the taller of the two would twitch uncomfortably. The younger of the two looked familiar, almost like the pictures that Jaden had shown him of the new Anchor. For a moment, Syrus debated whether or not to take out the guards and open the door. It probably wouldn't crash the loop, and if it really was Yuya, there was no trouble at all.

Of course, there was no reason for Yuya to be locked up right now, either.

He'd need to discuss things with the others.

~0~

Syrus grabbed a bread roll from the lunch cart, and sat down next to the other Loopers. Jaden waved a hand, golden egg bread smeared all over his face. "Yo, Sy! How's tricks?"

The blue haired Looper shrugged, unwrapping the bread roll. He took one look at it, and shrugged. "Lemon and curry. Eugh." He took a bite, and mulled over the situation. "I'm not sure. I think this might be a fused loop, though."

"Oh?" Beside him, Chazz bit into his own meal. "What kind of fused loop? Duel Monsters? Or something else?"

"I think it was the new Duel Monsters branch." Syrus nibbled on the edge of his bread roll. "They've turned one of the supply closets into what looks like a prison cell, and they've got a couple of guards posted. I used some of my cloaking tech to sneak a peak, and it looked like their anchor."

"Looked like?" Jaden wiped the egg bread off his face, suddenly serious. "Sy, there are four identical people in that branch, when it comes to the anchor. Three of them are looping, and the one who isn't, I never want to."

Alexis frowned. "You can tell the four apart by their hair. The anchor, Yuya, has green and red hair."

Syrus shook his head. "Nope. not green and red. This guy had black and purple."

All three of the other loopers grimaced at that. Syrus looked at them in bewilderment. "What's wrong?"

Jaden was the first to answer. "His name's Yuto. He's a co-anchor to Yuya, if I remember right." Jaden's face was grim. "The latest branch has four dimensions, at least. Each dimension has a look-alike to Yuya, and one to his friend Yuzu or Zuzu, or whatever her name is. The thing about these four Dimensions, though, is that each one is based on a different type of dueling, and from what we can guess, each is sort of like the other branches."

Syrus scratched his head. "So, you've got Domino City, Duel Academy, Neo Domino, and Heartland, right?"

"Pretty close." Chazz chimed in. "Miamai City, or Paradise City. Duel Academy. Whatever the Synchro dimension's called - the Synchro look-alike, Yugo, calls it the City a lot, but who knows. And Heartland. Two out of four's not half bad."

Syrus blinked. "Okay, so I got all of that, but why does it feel like you guys are trying to hide some dark and ominous secret all of a sudden?"

Jaden sighed, and buried his head in his hands. "The dimensions are at war, Sy. And Duel Academy invaded and destroyed Heartland." Jaden took a deep breath, and seemed to be mulling over something in his head. Finally, he looked up, and Syrus had to bite back a grimace at the hints of gold dancing in Jaden's eyes. "My first loop into the new Duel Academy. It's not something that I'll forget for a while..."

~0~

Jaden coughed as he Awoke, blinking past a haze of ash that seemed to fill the air. "Oh, man. Hacking up a lung is not a nice way to Wake up." Shaking his head, he sent out a Ping, and took a look around. Wherever he was, it had seen better days. Buildings were lying in rubble, and fires lit up the skyline. Jaden sighed. "Don't tell me I got another zombie loop. Six in a row is bad enough."

He tilted his head, and sent out another Ping. No answer. Again. "Looks like I'm on my own."

The sound of booted feet filled the air, and Jaden turned around to see a small squad of soldiers rounding the corner of a broken store. At least, they looked like soldiers, with their smart blue jackets and helmets. They were laughing about something, regaling each other with stories of some battle or other. Obelisk Force, some corner of his brain insisted. Jaden frowned, and almost decided to poke at his Loop memories, when one of the soldiers spotted him.

The soldier went pale for a moment, before nudging his comrades and standing to attention. "General! Good to see you! Did you find what you were looking for?"

Beside him, one of his companions gave a snort. "Come on. Be realistic. As if the General would let even one rat get past him. Of course he got 'em!"

Jaden balked for a moment, before summoning up every memory of the Supreme King that he could. He needed time to think, and get his memories straight, and that meant scaring these guys away for now. "Didn't you all have somewhere else to be? Other matters to attend to?"

The soldiers (Obelisk Force) looked at each other, grins on their faces. He must have said something right. "Sir, yes sir!" They all saluted, and ran off into the rubble. Jaden waited a few moments, making sure they were gone, before giving a sigh of relief.

He looked down at his clothes, frowning thoughtfully at the sight of the same blue uniform, sans helmet. "Okay. Now I can-"

The Ping felt like it hit him in the head with a sledgehammer. Jaden looked around. While it was usually hard to pinpoint distance, it was hard to interpret a Ping to the head like that one as anything but close by.

Caught of guard, Jaden nearly missed the dark shape hurtling towards him. As it was, he caught it out of the corner of his eye. He barely had time to notice Yuma's distinctive spikes before the younger anchor knocked him off his feet.

"Yuma?" Jaden looked up into Yuma's furious eyes. The other looper gave no indication that he had heard Jaden, and instead grabbed him by the collar, hauling him up. Yuma glared at Jaden. "You! General! What have you done with my friends?!"

* * *

9.6 krspaceT

Crow eyed the new duel disk that Kaiba had given him for this duel. It looked like someone had taken a Battle City duel disk, and given it the glowy, holographic styling of a Aporia or Miami/Paradise/No Kaiba in Sight town duel disk.

As to why Kaiba insisted he use this disk for this 'test duel', Crow had no idea. But the guy did offer him 50 preconstructed decks in exchange for being his 'test monkey while Wheeler was away', and the decks looked good from his point of view, so what the hay.

What's the worse Kaiba could do?

Activating his duel disk, he smirked at the rich boy as he took the first turn.

"DUEL!"

"Alright!" Crow declared "It's time to show you why Normal Monsters became a novelty in my time period! I normal summon Blackwing, Bora the Spear!"

In a gust of black feathers, his favorite spear wielding winged-beast appeared in front of him (1700, 800). But he wasn't done.

"Next, as I control a Blackwing, I can special summon my tuner monster, Blackwing Gale the Whirlwind!" in another gust of feathers the tuner monster appeared, perching right next to Bora (1300, 400). "Now, I'm going to tune them together!"

Gale broke into three green rings, surrounding the now transparent Bora.

"Darkened gales, become the wings which will soar to heaven! Synchro Summon! Level 7, BlackWing - Armored Wing!"

In a burst of green light the Synchro Monster appeared next to him (2500, 1500).

Crow smirked in Kaiba's way "Now this is a real monster. It cannot be destroyed by battle, and I take no damage from any battles with it. I can pierce even your Blue-Eyes power with it's ability!"

Kaiba was unfazed by Crow's comment "You do realize unlike your oversized pigeon, the imprisoning mirror trap card doesn't hinder my dragon at all?"

"Yeah, well if you throw down such a trap card, I have Mystical Space Typhoon!"

"Everyone has Mystical Space Typhoon if they aren't named Gongenzaka" Kaiba retorted, noting that Crow had ended his turn and drew for his own "Now, behold as I activate the magic card (It's Spell Card!) Summoners Art! With it, I add a Blue-Eyes White Dragon to my hand!"

A card pushed itself out of Kaiba's deck, which Kaiba promptly added in.

"Next, I use the magic card Ancient Rules! With it, I can special summon a Level 5 or higher Normal monster straight from my hand! Now tell me Crow, what card do you think I am going to play?"

"Rude Kaiser" Crow snarked as Kaiba chuckled darkly.

"Yeah no. Come Forth, Blue-Eyes White Dragon!" in a pillar of blue light the first of Kaiba's dragons roared to the field in attack mode (3000, 2500). Crow and Armor Master seemed unimpressed.

"Well then, if you still need to be entertained, allow me to continue!" Kaiba declared "Next up, I cast Reasoning!" Kaiba's third spell of the day appeared next to him "With this card, you have to declare a level, and I draw cards from my deck until I draw a monster. If the monster is any level but the level you called, I can special summon it!"

"And let me guess, you want your big fancy second Blue-Eyes" Crow snarked "Well then, I declare that you're going to draw a level 8 monster!"

Kaiba took the challenge and drew a card from his deck "The card I've drawn is Crush Card Virus." he sent the trap card to the graveyard and drew again, before smirking.

"Tough luck, because I've drawn the mighty Kaiser Sea Horse!" the armored fish appeared on Kaiba's field right next to the Blue-Eyes (1700, 1650).

"Next, is the magic card (damn it, it's spell card!) Foolish Burial! With this, I can send a card in my deck to the graveyard! I send my second Blue-Eyes White Dragon to the graveyard, but he won't be there for long, because I have Silver's Cry!"

5 spell cards later, and now a second Blue-Eyes had appeared on the field, and Kaiba had one card left in his hand.

"Let me guess, you're gonna..."

"Oh, I'm gonna!" Kaiba said gleefully "I tribute Kaiser Sea Horse, counting it it as two tributes for my third Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"

With a final roar, Crow found himself being stared down by three iconic dragons who sponsored over priced coffee.

"You know Kaiba, that was really long-winded" Crow pointed out as Kaiba glared back.

"And how many minutes does it take you Signers to finish off your synchro chains again? I could buy out Warner Brothers and Scholastic in that time if I wanted to! Anyway, it's your move then".

Crow wasn't sure he liked how Kaiba said that, but he reached for his deck anyway, when it began to glow.

"What in the..." Crow began, as he noticed his hand and extra deck were also glowing. In fact, only his field and graveyard were spared. As Crow's eyes widened in shock, his deck and hand seemingly vanished, only for another deck to replace it. It shuffled itself, before six new cards shot into his hand.

And as Crow shockingly noticed, none of these cards were Blackwings.

"Behold, the newest and greatest evolution in non-action dueling!" Kaiba said smugly "I call it the Shuffle Duel! Each turn, a player begins with a new hand and deck, truly testing a duelists skills and strategies!"

"Well, where in the name of Celestia's Petunias did my actual deck go!" Crow demanded as Kaiba smirked.

"Why your Subspace Pocket of course. These new duel disks are able to sync with the users mind and subspace pocket, switching between decks at will. Why did you think I gave you all those new decks in the first place, I had to make sure you could actually play the game".

"Heck ya I can play the game, even if you want to make me play 'Musical Decks'! Now then, it's time to school you! I set the pendulum scales with my Qliphort Carrier and Qliphort Disk!"

Two space-ship like monsters rose up next to crow in large blue pillars, as large numbers formed beneath each of them.

Or number in this case, as both has 1 underneath them. Crow spread his arms wide, and shouted "Pendulum summon!"

..

..

..

Crow and Armor Master were looking around in mutual confusion "Um, come forth my monster servants?"

Kaiba shook his head. He was going to likely need more test subjects before he could be sure his new system worked well enough to challenge Yugi to a duel.

* * *

9.1  
Yes, _Tristan Tailor_ took down Zarc.

9.2  
Sora in Five Nights At Freddy's, cause, y'know, his frightfur monsters? Yggdrasil loves these kinds of situations.

9.3  
VRAINS isn't over yet so no loops for it, but eventually...

9.4  
Goddangit Yusei...

9.5  
Yuto and Shun in Yugioh GX...ouch.

9.6  
The Yugioh loopers (More specifically Kaiba) have come up with a thing called Shuffle Duels. Look forward to more of those!


	10. Chapter 10

**hnh058513**\- Yup, Pendulum noob. He could use some lessons from Yuya.

In all seriousness though, thanks for the reviews and constant support!

**Apologies for the wait! I was recently banned from using a computer, but the down time has given me the opportunity to get a couple more chapters done. So the next couple of updates won't take nearly as long!**

**And before we start, I have to quickly retcon something!**

**There isn't technically a limit for how many anchors you can have in a given loop story. But there is too much of a good thing with this, and there should still be as few anchors as possible though, but due to the way Arc-V is, it feels right to have all four of the Yu-boys as anchors. Yes, that means Yuri's one too! I went back and changed the past couple chapters so he's present in the loops he originally wasn't (Cause anchors are awake in basically every loop!)**

**And the reason it took longer to get him and Yugo looping, was uh...***Quickly checks Leonite's suggestion on the spacebattles forum*

Ah, screw it. Here:

"_Simply put, Arc-V as a loop was badly damaged, so all that could be set up at first was Yuya and Yuto being linked as a soul bond. When the data for Zarc was fully recovered - after the loops already written - Yuri was dragged in_."

-Leonite, Oct 2019

**There ya go! From the **man **himself.**

**So yes. ****All four Yu-boys are anchors, and Zarc is Grima Patched, so _nothing_ to worry about here!**

**Now that's that out of the way, enjoy!**

* * *

10.1 Garebel

Yuzu signed. Yuya apparently decided to change the Action Cards up for the loop, as a change of pace. He was still using his Entertainment Dueling, but…

She nearly doubled over laughing at what Odd-Eyes did to dodge one of XX-Saber's attacks. No one from LDS could blame her.

"Grr…I thought the Action Field Sword's Graveyard was covered in _swords_, not bananas!" Yaiba yelled.

Yuya decided to duel Yaiba in place of Gong. Thankfully, an unAwake Sora was able to duel one of the other LDS representatives, who wasn't the usual guy, though and pulled out a win.

"He's not a banana, he's Entermate Nanana!" Yuya yelled back, somehow staying on Odd-Eyes, despite the fact that Odd-Eyes was bending into the shape of a seven.

"How are you even still on your Monster!?"

"Not telling!" Yuya taunted. "The Magicians in Entertainment never reveal their secrets, why should I?"

* * *

10.2 krspaceT

"Blaze Accelerator's effect is now activated!"

Test 2 was underway, and it was certainly better than the first test, seeing as the test subject was more adaptable in dueling style and actually had her own decks to switch through.

Rio Kastle, whose field currently held a remnant Gem-Knight Master Diamond (3100, 2500) and Raid-Raptor Force Strix (100, 2000) from earlier turns using Gem-Knight and Raid Raptor cards and 1700 lifepoints, had the blaster of the spell card aimed his way, in particular his overlayless Constellar Pleiades (2500, 1500), El-Shadoll Construct (2800, 2500), and Hyper Psychic Blaster (3000, 2500) and his 2500 life points.

"I discard my Volcanic Scattershot to the graveyard!" Rio sent the three headed little devil to the grave, as one flew right out of the war machine and slammed into Construct, causing his most recently summoned creature to fall apart.

He noted his duel disk eject the used El-Shadoll Fusion, as per it's effect.

"Next, because I sent Volcanic Scattershot to the graveyard, it's effect sends the other two Volcanic Scattershots in my deck to the graveyard, destroying all your monsters and burning you for 1500!"

His field erupted into the flames as he lost his Xyz and Synchro monster as well, not to mention lifepoints (2500-1000), as if the ground beneath them was a minefield.

"I normal summon Volcanic Slicer!" the reptilian fire monster roared to Rio's side (1800, 1200) "I now use the effect of Volcanic Slicer, burning you for 500 more points of damage!"

A fireball was hacked right into his chest, sending him skidding back with a smoldering coat (1000-500).

"I end my turn by setting one card, and activating the spell card Wave Motion Cannon!" Rio shouted with triumph as the organic looking cannon rose up behind her, as it began to visible charge energy "At the start of each of my draw phases, this card gains a counter. By removing these counters, I can blast you for 1000 points of damage! You only have one turn left Kaiba, let's see if I get to join the Yugi and Pegasus club of people who beat you at your own game!"

Oh for that, the Barian chick was going down. She was going to anyway, but now it was going to hurt.

"Enough talk!" Kaiba shouted as his deck shimmered, the Shadolls leaving the building "I draw!"

With his new hand, Kaiba smirked.

"It's time to show you how a duel is supposed to go!" Kaiba declared "I activate Spell Absorption!"

* * *

10.3 [Arc-V/Crises across Infinite Loops]

Just as Reiji finished sending his own ping, he received about half a dozen more. He'd begun wondering if there was any important reason that everyone was awake this loop, when Yuya flew through the window in a frenzy.

"Mr. Akaba!" One of the guards outside asked, coming in after hearing the loud CRASH of breaking glass. Yuya sat on the ground, catching his breath, no doubt after having flown the entire way here.

"Leave us." Reiji ordered the guard before the man could do anything, and the guy left.

He faced his panicking anchor, "Is something the matte- -"

"We need to call a looper meeting!"

* * *

Everyone sat around the large table together, wondering what was going on, and what was so important that Reiji and Yuya had to call a full looper meeting.

"**HEY**** EVERYONE! LISTEN UP**!" Came a loud voice that called all their attention to the front. "Thanks Yugo." Yuya muttered. Yugo then sat down, looking pleased with himself.

Yuya cleared his throat and stood up. As he pulled a couple of objects out of his subspace pocket, he looked very out of it. Something that only caused everyone else to worry, as he was upbeat and positive most of the time.

"Me and Yuto recently got a few messages from Thoth." He picked up a few post-it-notes, a couple which had been dropped on the table by Yuto which got another batch of curious and worried glances. "There's something really bad happening around Yggdrasil right now. It's so bad, that Thoth's locked out of his terminal, and couldn't even contact any of us in the usual way...hence the post-it-notes in my and Yuto's subspace pockets."

"Spit it out already! What's going on!?" Yugo exclaimed. Rin who was sitting to his left, grabbed his arm and pulled him back into his seat. Yuya smiled appreciatively at her, worried expression alleviated for a moment.

"There's a virus going around Yggdrasil. One that attempts to activate the bad guys in each loop."

This was met with many gasps and glares, the two recently awakened bracelet girls looked both scared and angry, their respective Yu-boys comforting them, except for Yuzu who was sitting across from Yuya, and they met each other's gazes anxiously. Reiji and Gong's eyes widened, with a loud and sudden *Crack, Sora's lollipop was now splinters in his mouth, and Shun's gaze intensified tenfold.

Gin and Clef hopped around under the table together, unaware of the dire situation taking place above.

Thoth hadn't left any sort of list, and all they had to go on was that "villains" would be the ones targeted, and this was _after_ one Dolores Umbridge (Yikes...!)was almost activated.

"But we don't have to worry, because according to Thoth," He started reading off another note, "The virus can't activate anyone that's dead by the end of the loop."

"That's surprisingly to the point for him. Which affirms that it's a very serious threat." Reiji murmured to himself.

Yuya cleared his throat again. "Now, I'm well aware that outright killing _really_ isn't our thing..." (Absolutely no one glanced to Yuri. He looked affronted all the same.)

"But desperate times call for desperate measures." Yuto said.

"So, we'll split up to cover all of the dimensions, correct?" Yuri asked. "Are there any potential enemies in Standard?"

"None that didn't come from somewhere else." Reiji affirmed.

* * *

Somewhere outside, a boy with brown hair and yellow bangs layed out like a banana peel sneezed.

* * *

Shun and Yuto along with everyone else stood up. Ruri linked their arms looking very determined. "I'll help. with any enemies in the Xyz Dimension." She affirmed. Shun and Yuto, and Gong would go with her.

Rin matched Ruri's determined grin with one of her own. "Me and Rin can take care of any of those bastards in the Synchro Dimension." Yugo said, linking arms with Rin.

"Leo Akaba's going down!" Sora cheered, chomping on another lollipop. Yuri and Serena nodded in their own set determination. The three of them would be accompanied by Yuzu, Reiji and Yuya, as Academia had the most potential enemies and thus the most potential activation candidates.

Gin and Clef returned to their owners arms, everyone armed themselves with their dueldisks, the special ones that would allow them all to communicate.

And they were off.

* * *

10.4 Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V/Kingdom Hearts

Yuri woke up in a desert. A lifeless, barren desert. A good few yards away lay an array of strangely shaped weapons impaled in the ground.

His loop memories told him they were keyblades, that he also had one, and that this place he was now in was called "The Keyblade graveyard". And he was supposedly apprenticed to this terrible, neglectful old man named _Xehanort_.

Looking over what the man had done to him, he scowled, and opened a dark corridor to get out of there. He would not be that terrible man's pawn. He would not have a repeat of the role he played in his loop's baseline.

Now to go find Yugo. Maybe he'd find Yuya and Yuto on the way. If they were even here...

* * *

"Hey Roxas, is it just me or does this remind you of Castle Oblivion a little _too _much?"

Roxas nodded, a gesture that only Sora could see as he summoned a bright pink hippo with a top hat and jumped on it, trusting the monster to know where to go in these so-called "action duels."

"_Actually, I've heard from some visiting Loopers about this place. The Yu-Gi-Oh loops. Card games are kinda their thing._"

"_No_..." Sora whined while pouting adorably. "I _hated_ the card based battle system!"

Roxas pat him on the back, or rather would if he weren't effectively a ghost.

"_On the plus side, it's less using cards to physically attack and more like summoning._ _It's like that for all the Yugioh loops. Now stop stalling and kick this guy's ass already!_" Roxas cheered.

Sora nodded. "Performapal hip-hippo can be used as two tributes! I use it to tribute summon Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon!"

* * *

Yugo woke up on the grass, staring up at the wonderfully starry sky in front of a huge castle. He sat up to be greeted by two other people. His loop memories told him they were named Aqua and Terra, and they were all best friends, apprenticed under Master Eraqus.

The two were looking him over, eyeing his blue and yellow-banged hair that rarely changed between loops. But finally Terra smiled and asked, "Are you feeling loopy?"

Yugo blinked. Then matched Terra's grin. The blue-haired girl, Aqua smiled too. "Yep! Loopy all the way through." He affirmed.

"I'm Yugo, one of three co-anchors of the Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V loops!"

The two's expressions turned curious, when all of a sudden a...something of an inky well of blackness appeared in midair. Terra and Aqua tensed, while Yugo just tried to figure out what was going on. There may have been holes in his loop memories because the thing in front of them was a mystery to him. It was cold though, and he shivered.

Two flashes of light lit up his friends bodies, and then they were holding gigantic...key-shaped weapons. He stared in awe, while the two older apprentices gave each other a look.

"Yugo, aren't you going to summon your keyblade?" Aqua asked kindly, neither her nor Terra turning away from the portal.

"A whuh?"

"A **keyblade**,_ fusion_. And here I thought you couldn't get any stupider." Came an eerily familiar voice from the inky black portal.

"Vanit- -" Aqua started to snarl, but the figure emerged and she cut herself off.

It was not Vanitas.

This person was still dressed in a dark suit, though one with purple veins instead of red, the keyblade they were clutching only vaguely looked like void gear- -there seemed to be vines etched around the guard, for one, the teeth seemed to resemble flower petals more, and again, it was purple instead of red- -and his hair was purple on top of pink. About the only thing that stayed the same was that his eyes were yellow.

"Oh hey Yuri..." Yugo said, before his smile dropped as he registered what was said.

"Goddammit! For the last time, it's **_YUGO_** not FUSION!" He suddenly thundered, loud enough that Aqua and Terra winced from being in close proximity. They saw a smug grin on Yuri's face, that quickly dissolved into a genuine smile and a chuckle. The dark corridor closed behind him and his keyblade dispersed.

Aqua and Terra felt it was safe enough that they dismissed theirs as well.

"Is this one of your fellow anchors?" Terra asked, seeing that they clearly knew each other.

"And he took _Vanitas_' place?" Aqua muttered worriedly to herself.

"Yeah, but there's actually four of us." Yugo said, ignoring the second question. "Now who's this "Vanitas" fella?" He asked, switching subjects, curious as to who that was.

Yuri was curious as well, though he wasn't saying anything yet, letting Yugo explain and ask. If _he_ was replacing this Vanitas guy, then it was more than likely that he was a villain of some sorts. Yuri tried not to sigh at the thought. Even with Lelouche's rather roundabout explanation, it still hurt to know there was little changing the way the system categorized him.

"Well, he's one of our enemies. He works with Xehanort, the uh...overall villain for our loop. He's also got a connection to Ven, who's got a connection to Sora...I don't know how he's not looping yet, but he's someone we wouldn't want looping. EVER."

Yuri tried not to flinch. Yugo glanced towards him, seeing how uncomfortable he was.

"Yeah, Yuri was a villain for awhile too." He said it so nonchalantly, even as they glanced at Yuri who seemed somewhat upset. If he was a villain, they wondered what had changed that he perhaps wasn't anymore.

"One loop, Serena got herself and I far away from Academia and...the Professor, and we were siblings with Yuya. It was a very peaceful vacation loop. I activated the loop after that one, and..." He paused, slight horror and guilt in his eyes.

"Yeah, he felt really bad when he saw what he normally did in baseline under the Professor's orders...so he just doesn't do that anymore." Yugo added, slipping an arm around Yuri's neck and pulling him out of his thoughts.

Yuri glanced to his beaming face, and couldn't help but smile too.

"Is it really that easy?" Aqua wondered as she and Terra shared another glance.

Yugo moved away from Yuri and turned to Terra and Aqua again. "So... what's this keyblade thing?" He asked eagerly.

Yuri scoffed, yellow eyes rolling. "You should know from your loop memories, fusion. We both have one."

"It's YUGO DAMMIT! NOT F- -" Aqua summoned her keyblade again.

"Behave, you two." She commanded, and the two boys went silent.

"Now, Yugo, to summon your keyblade you..."

* * *

"Pitiful heartless, mindlessly collecting hearts." Saíx intoned. "The rage of the keyblade releases those hearts.

They gather in darkness, masterless and free, until they weave together to make Kingdom Hearts."

Axel couldn't help but roll his eyes. He mostly ignored what was being said in favor of eagerly watching the archway, waiting for Roxas to appear.

"Let us welcome one of the keyblade's chosen to the Organization. Number XII, Yuxay!"

Axel's eyes roved over the new arrival, the guy who _definitely_ wasn't Roxas. He was dressed in one of the organization's cloaks, but unlike the full hair of spiky, windswept yellow, or brown as it sometimes was when Roxas and Sora switched spots for the loop, this guy's hair was wildly spiked purple and black.

He hadn't met with Ven's, or as was looking more likely, the looper who replaced Ven for this loop yet.

He felt a ping, and "Yuxay" seemed to be staring right at him. He sent one back and watched him nod almost imperceptibly.

Axel couldn't help but grin. It was definitely another looper, and one he'd be sure to show the ropes to once this meeting was over.

* * *

"CARD GAMES ON MOTORCYCLES!" VEN couldn't help but yell for some reason as he raced past Security on a motorcycle. _D-wheel_ he corrected himself. The Security guy had caught up with him and forced him into a duel, the duel disk opening like a butterfly. Ven took the first turn with a grin. After this he'd be sure to go look for the local anchor. And maybe he could keep this deck to play with Aqua and Terra someday.

* * *

The purple-cloaked man with the partly-metal head stared at what was behind the glass.

"By analyzing the memories of the agent that I sent to Standard, I found very interesting information."

A picture of a certain pink-haired girl turned a stern glare to the boy standing in front of his throne.

"I need you to capture Yuzu and bring her here. Is that understood?"

The black-haired, yellow-eyed boy smiled maliciously. "Of course...professor." Vanitas said, bowing and sweeping out of the room, ready to cause some chaos.

* * *

10.5 [dragonraptyr] [All YuGiOh Series]

The anchors clustered together around the table that had been hastily set up along the back wall of the Kame Game Shop.

" 'So You're Evil: Possession and What to Do About It' " Yuya read the title of the book in confusion, tilting his head slightly. "Weird name for a book."

Yugi nodded. "I have no idea where it came from, either. I just started the loop, and it was sitting on my dresser. No loop memory, no note from Thoth, and Grandpa and my parents don't remember picking it up, either. It's like it just suddenly existed."

"You could get rid of it." Jaden suggested. "I mean, most of us know enough curse-breaking stuff or have spell cards that can cancel out any kind of nasty stuff that it tries to pull on us."

"We tried that first." Atem grumbled. "Kuriboh is threatening to sue us for begonia-induced trauma."

"Don't ask." Yugi added.

"You could just stick it in your backpack for the duration of the loop." Yusei suggested. "It'll go away by the end of the loop anyway."

"I think it's half weeping angel." Yugi sighed. "Everytime we look away, it moves somewhere we can see it."

"Have you read it?" Yuma flipped through the book. "Maybe it really wants you to read it."

"Bad idea." Astral cut in. "Remember looping observation Tt34By83? 'Reading cursed objects that talk about possession end up possessing you 9 times out of 10'?"

"I remember." Yuma teased. "But I've got some pretty powerful friends around to stop me if I go insane."

Yuya picked up the book and looked at the cover. "Does anyone know who wrote this anyway?" He asked the others. "There's no name on it anywhere."

Meanwhile...

_"Come on, you foolish mortals."_ Zorc Necrophades looked around at the squabbling forms of countless evils and Paradox trapped within some murky shadow-realm. "_How hard can it be to get a gaggle of mortals to read a book that practically forces you to read it anyway?"_

* * *

10.1

Entermate Nanana: I'm a Banana! I'm a banana!

...What? It was the only thing I cold come up with at the last minute...

10.2

Round 2 of Shuffle Duels! Rio Kastle comes up to bat! How will she fare again the mother-flippin **Seto Kaiba**!?

10.3

Can you _imagine_ if Umbridge was looping? I shudder at the thought.

This is an opportunity for all the thread heads and loop writers/compilers to get some of their villains looping. Unless they're Rwby, in which they already have the ones you'd want to be looping, looping. And they have been for awhile now.

And then you have the Kingdom hearts loops, which took the opportunity to get one of heir villains looping! I'm not saying which because that would be spoilers!

And I can't say much about the other loops because there's just _so freakin' many_! If you wanna check em' out though, go right ahead! Bit of a heads up though, some of them are _REALLY_ long

10.4

So... I've been really into KH recently.

I originally got the idea from realizing how similar Yuri and Vanitas are, and the rest just slid into place.

10.5

After the whole thing with Zarc, Yuya's gonna need some support. Luckily, the has a whole support system of fellow Yugioh anchors who have quite a bit of experience with the whole "Possession thing."


	11. Chapter 11

hnh058513: Actually...I think that snip was written years ago. In fact, most snips that weren't written by me were written years ago and left to rot in the spacebattles forum thread when Leo went off the grid. I just dug em' up to supplement for my quickly bottoming out well of creativity in regards to this series. It's why the chapters of this loop story are so much shorter than other loop stories. While most stories have multiple writers all writing multiple snippets with one person compiling them into a fanfic, I'm essentially a one-woman band.

Admittedly, I'm kind of self-concious about that. Which is why I've been thinking of going back over all the snippets and re-compiling them into longer chapters while maybe adding a few in, spacing out the ones I've written and the ones gotten from the spacebattles forum... It would mean there are less chapter overall, but there'd also be a lot more content in each one.

**Ah geez! I'm sorry...that...went completely off the rails and turned into a rant..! It's been on my mind ever since I started this fic, guess I needed to vent a little, SO sorry about that...**

**0_0 Ellipses. Let's...just... continue on with the chapter, shall we?**

And there's a note on the bottom cause you all know what day it is!

* * *

11.1 Kamico

Yuuya Woke up to a smoking Heartland, a terrified family in front of his brandished Academia-issued Duel Disc and a few moments too late to abort the carding command. It took a mere second for them to disappear in a flash of purple and to be ejected as cards. He stayed still, accessing his in-Loop memory to find out why he was in such a situation. The answer did not make him feel better in the slightest. In fact, it worsened his already foul mood.

He hated the loops where Akaba Leo was brutally unfettered, ruthless and pragmatic. Twice so in the cases of the Professor discarding any semblance of sanity and ethics.

For his Unawake self to rescue his parents, the Hiiragi family and the kidnapped girls with a killswitch hidden somewhere inside his body would have been impossible. For him, the Anchor?

He teleported out of the Xyz Dimension (Yuuto is Awake now, he would stop the Academia invasion and uncard everyone) via GX branch Dimension Walk technique, discarding the Disc and the Parasite cards 'his' Deck consisted of into the Void. He arrived to the Fusion Dimension Harbor, sent out a Ping with a single answer – from Yuuto – arriving. Which meant…

"Hey, pals?" he pulled out his Performapal deck from the Pocket. "Can you get everyone innocent out the Academia? I'm going to vaporize the island in five minutes."

The Duel Spirits readily agreed, flying off to move people out of his way.

He sat down, turning his focus inside, to his Soul Room, calling to the piece of himself that was the Supreme Dragon King Z-ARC. He was there, already Loop-aware, as well as Yuuri who, as he now remembered, was executed around three years ago by Leo himself. Zarc responded quickly, eager to destroy, allowing Yuuya to assume the appearance of the older Duelist.

Discover Hippo notified him of the evacuation being finished. He nodded and dismissed the spirit, equipping the Original Dimension Duel Disc and teleporting to above the Academia Island.

Supreme King Servant Dragons, Odd-Eyes, Dark Rebellion, Clear Wing and Starve Venom were summoned by merely placing their cards on the blade, the four starting to destroy everything in their wake. They searched for Akaba Leo in the destruction, lashing out with dark power to topple the towers and walls. Yuuya found him quickly, under a protection of floating Isolation Dome. Sitting on the throne, stone-faced as always.

"Akaba Leo," Yuuya stated. "Your actions woke me up. Congratulations."

Integration Summon was always unpleasant, with him and the dragons blending into one being, but, thankfully, no longer had a chance to crash the loop as of a recent patch. His Supreme King Dragon body was enormous, power of blast – greater than any in-Loop scale. The machinery of human design had no chance to withstand the attack, being disintegrated together with the stone and water underneath.

He hovered above the destruction for a moment, trying to discern if Professor escaped, but after a few minutes, as the ocean settled, decided to stop.

Yuuya dismissed every Supreme King monster, returning to his own appearence. There was blood flowing down his neck from a gaping hole from the exploded chip in the back of his skull, but the wound was already closing. He swallowed a potion for a good measure.

He felt emptied. Exhausted and hollow. Zarc wanted to destroy more, but… Yuuya just wanted to go home – but in this Loop there was no home – and sleep.

He hated the loops in which Akaba Leo was efficient. They never became easier.

Now, to the Synchro Dimension. To remove Roget from his seat, get the control chips out of Security members' heads and the minds of the City Council out of the gutter. After that… if no one else Wakes up, maybe, he will explain to his Unawake friends what exactly happened. Or maybe not. He wanted to have some time alone. Until next Loop sounded nice.

* * *

11.2 wildrook/krspaceT/Mirror Mage

Bursting into the office of Konami, a domino masked Jaden pointed a dramatic finger right at the C.E.O.

"You've gone completely mad! You're treating your franchises like trash, your employees even worse, and worst of all you are messing with the balance of the Duel Monsters card game to boost card sales instead of removing overpowered archetypes! What do you have to have to say for yourself!"

The C.E.O turned his chair around to face Jaden, revealing Yami Marik.

"I do it all for people's pain and suffering!"

"Wait, Yami Marik's the president of Konami?" a Sentai styled Super-Yuma dropped out of the ceiling, Astral glowing behind him "I thought it was Vector."

"Vector's my Chairman of Human Resources."

"...Well, that explains a lot."

"So, what does that make ZONE and Nightshroud?" Yusei dressed as a Starlight-based Kamen Rider Ichigo asked them.

"ZONE's in charge of marketing and accounting," Yami Marik replied. "Nightshroud just test-runs the Pachinko machines. Although...aren't you a little bright to be a Kamen Rider?"

Yusei gave out a glare. "This was not my design," he said, glancing at Jaden, who gave out a nervous chuckle. "None of them are.

"And the Goodwin brothers?" Yugi asked them, dressed as Ultraman while Atem was dressed as Dr. Strange.

"Tech Support," Yami Marik replied.

"And dare I ask what Dartz's spot is?" Atem asked him.

The darker half of Marik smirked. "Dartz, no. The Orichalcos itself, however, is in tech support."

"Okay, there's evil, then there's being an outright dick," Yusei muttered. "Last I checked, that thing can't talk."

"Oh, really?" a voice asked them, in an accent. "Then what do you call this, you [EFF]ing spiky-haired prick?"

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," the Pharaoh said. "It can take human form? And I'm pretty sure his hair just changed color."

"...Phone for Quality Control Jean Roget speaking...a glitch in the Kaiba Box version? Try buying some DLC and call back, I'm sure it will be fixed with that." a voice rang out from somewhere nearby.

"Kaiba Box, bah. Mobile gaming is the future of gaming." Yami Marik stated with great snark.

"A Kaiba box?" Yusei shook his head at that, "What, is it a game console that looks like a Blue Eyes head? Do you put the discs in it's mouth?"

"Yeah you do. USB drives go in the teeth." Yuma pointed out. "Now, corporate take out formation, stat!"

Yuya frowned, adjusting the hat of what looked like a garish Kaitou Kid getup. "...Should I ask what Yuri's position is in all this?"

Yami Marik chuckled. "He makes an excellent Vice President."

"But then where's the Thief King in all of this? Or Zorc?" Yugi wondered.

"Zorc helps design the trading cards. The Thief King is... Indisposed."

* * *

"Why... Are we... The Shadow Realm?"

"Hey, I just woke up a few minutes ago-cut me some slack!"

"Urgh..." Ryou massaged his temples, attempting to calm himself down. "Once... Just once, I'd like a loop where we don't end up in the Shadow Realm, or with an angry looper on our tails..."

"Hey, if you want anyone to blame, pin it on the demented psychopath. I was completely innocent this time!"

_I highly doubt that..._ Ryou sighed, shaking his head as he searched around the area. "Just tell me you know a way out of here..."

* * *

"And the one time the Thief King would have made a VERY good ally, too," Atem muttered. "Either way, Jaden, your plan?"

"My question is why you guys decided to dress up as Superheroes," Yami Marik said.

"Jaden's idea," Yugi replied. "It was either this or the alternative."

Jaden then groaned. "Yubel had the alternative." There was a dark chuckle. "They have a dark sense of humor."

Yusei was still disturbed at the appearance of the other costumes. "Stardust Rider was less asinine, unfortunately," he added.

"Keeping that in mind," Yami Marik said, bringing out the Millennium Rod and switching it to knife form.

Atem blinked. "I don't know if it's just me thinking this," he muttered, "but using the Millennium Rod as a knife is less surprising than it should be when you remember that it was made via human sacrifices."

"No, you're not alone in thinking that," Yugi replied. "Add the fact that it's thousands of years old, and being stabbed by it is a lot more painful than it should be."

"Wait, aren't you guys missing someone?" Yuya asked them. "I mean, what about that crazy guy?"

"Oh right," Yusei said. "Where's Paradox?"

"He left the company," Yami Marik replied. "Something about cardboard boxes and how they're not fit in this industry and made his own gaming company. Usually, he HATES card games."

Atem, Yugi, Jaden, Yubel, Yusei, Yuma, and Astral face-faulted as it dawned on them what they were set up to do.

"I take it that's not normal," Yuya said, out of the Loop. **_(Badum-Tsshhhhhhh...)_**

Yubel sighed, dressed like the Martian Manhunter. "You don't know the half of it," they said to Yuya. "And I thought you guys said Marik wasn't Looping."

"He isn't," Astral whispered. "Although that anonymous tip-off was quite strange. It's like there was rambling involved."

* * *

Minutes after the attack, the heroes chosen by Yu and their Spirit Advisors confront Paradox.

"I take it you got my call?" Paradox asked them, dressed like Colonel Campbell.

"Yeah, we did," Atem replied. "I have several questions concerning your involvement, but number one is this: Why in the name of sanity did you decide to prank us?"

"Because I didn't want to get involved in another Card Game for the fate of the world and I've been taking therapy." Paradox just sat down. "Either way, I take it you noticed how many of your villains took over Konami this Loop?"

Jaden then groaned. "Yeah," he said, "and we kind of succeeded by getting a couple millionaires we know involved. Then Bakura and Ryou came out of the Shadow Realm, through the ring itself, and managed to take over from there. Former villains tend to fill in the void in a power vacuum."

Yusei noticed that tone. "You've been to Brockton Bay, too?" he asked the Hero Duelist.

"It's showing, isn't it?"

"Let's get back to the point," Yugi said. "You've been taking therapy for your Card Game PTSD?"

Paradox nodded.

"And you decided to prank all of us due to being involved in your defeats," Yuma added.

Again, Paradox nodded.

"But then the prank started to become true," Yuya noted. "And we find the sometimes Melvin, agent of 4Kids, in charge of the company with other villains taking roles in the gaming corporation."

Paradox blinked. "I didn't think that would happen."

"Oh god, that's even worse," Yusei muttered, sitting down.

"Well," Yubel said, "it could have been weirder."

"How so?" Astral asked her.

"He could have had a group of Sailor Senshi-like people try to go after 4Kids."

"About that," Paradox muttered, still kind of shocked that Yubel guessed correctly, "I needed to distract them to make sure they didn't convince you otherwise."

* * *

11.4 continued from 9.6 and 10.2. Mirror Mage/krspaceT

"Come on, Wheeler... Retaliating's not that hard..."

"Stop mocking me, Kaiba!"

This... Was looking bad. Turns out, Joey hadn't been able to catch on to the new system until he was knee deep in some serious trouble. A Vanity's Fiend stared at him from across the field, lips drawn in a self-satisfied smirk, a Kaiser Glider and Felgrand Dragon flexed their wings, ready to take to the sky, and all Joey had standing were a Headless Knight and a Kuriboh. None of which would, well... last really long.

And with that Vanity's Fiend taking up residence on the field, all Fusion-Synchro-_any_ special summon, really-was immediately off the table. (He wasn't sure if the Destiny Board would help him, either-it's deck-searching functions probably wouldn't work here, depending on how the darn dueling system was set up.)

He readied his latest hand, near-certain it'd be his last, when...

"...Hey Kaiba."

"What is it, Wheeler?"

"You said that this device scans my subspace pocket-and my mind-to get any ol' deck onto the field?"

"As long as it's a complete deck..." Kaiba sounded suspicious-and became even more so once Joey gave a familiar... grin.

_One Disaster Later..._

That. Was too close.

That. Was probably the last straw. Seconds after Wheeler had asked that question, he "graced" the field with that... _thing_.

It had to be that abomination, from a previous loop. It had to be the one card that Kaiba outright banned every time he awoke-even though the card could have been lost in the massive crash it had caused, or the chaos ensuing beforehand. Maybe it was some sort of a fluke. Maybe some Mythos hacker had gotten wind of the card, and decided to have it... pop in just for sh*ts and giggles. Kaiba was just glad he'd drawn a Skill Drain before things got... even more out of hand.

As much as he hated to admit it, he would need to retool the disk slightly. The system worked near-perfectly, of course, with a specialized algorithm to select what counted as a deck, and what didn't. Incomplete decks and individual cards were skipped over, never appearing once-and that included most banned cards, which were normally left out of the deck and to the side. But if someone built a _complete deck_ around them...

The important part of testing _any _duel system or deck was to check them for bugs-things that just didn't work right, coding that needed to be polished... Even brilliant programmers made errors every now and again-not that he'd admit it ever to anyone, especially not Yugi, or the Mutt. But this duel had made it clear: he'd need a specialized system for rooting out banned cards-one that could somehow transcend time and space, updating without issue... or failing that, a rudimentary banning system, along with limited distribution for the disk until he worked out a proper code.

_If I never see that Goat again, it'll be all too soon._

"Ban list: Any card with 'Goat' in it's name, a card that vaguely resembles a goat, Shining/Barian Chaos/pull a win out of your ass magical draws, Cards of Darkness, the Seal of Orichalcos, Golden Castle of Stromberg, Infernalvania, Earthbound Immortal cards that require souls, Fiber Jar, Exodia" Kaiba admitted the last one was a bit petty as he typed in the necessary code updates to the Shuffle Draw System.

But it was his ban list, he could ban whatever the hell he wanted. He could ban Dark Magician if he wanted to.

But he figured that would be pushing it. Now, to find someone to test the fixed system out on.

* * *

11.5 [Fnaf] continued from 9.2

Night 2

The beginning of the night was so quiet, that Sora couldn't help but start getting anxious. From his experience, when things were this quite, it was never good.

Every creak of the fan sent him rapidly flipping through the cameras, every buzz of some distant electronic had him nearly slamming the doors out of reflex.

Truly, the waiting was the worst part.

The dang telephone ringing itself off it's base nearly sent him flying out of his seat.

And it was only Night 2 for candy's sake!

"Alright, let's get this over with..."

"_Uh hello? Hello?!_" Sora just sighed at the voice. _"Well if you're hearing this then you made it to day 2. Uh- congrats!  
_

_I-I won't talk quite as long this time since Freddy and friends tend to become more active as the night progresses."_

Yeah, Sora figured. That's why he's been flipping through the cameras like mad since the night started. He was mostly ignoring phone guy at that point. He wasn't saying anything that Sora wasn't already doing.

"_...n-not that you would be in any danger, of course._"

_Of **course**_. He sarcastically thought.

Much like the previous night though, none of the animatronics were moving. Not an inch.

_Is this some kind of joke?_ Sora found himself wondering.

The animatronics should be _doing_ something! It was seriously disorienting.

He knew all the animatronics were all activated from visiting loopers who'd been here before. So maybe they were playing some kind of prank..?

"..._Also, check on the curtain in pirate cove. The character in there is unique in that he seems to become more active if the camera remains off for long periods of time. I-I guess he doesn't like being watched...I don't know._"

...

Wait...he had **another** one to look out for?!

"_Well, I'm sure you have everything figured out. Uhh, talk to you soon!"_

It took a moment to calm his rapidly beating heart.

~0~

At 3 o'clock, after realizing the animatronics _still_ weren't moving, Sora started wondering if there was something wrong with the robots.

The clock ticked to 4am, and he gradually started relaxing.

Maybe the animatronic looking at the camera the first night was just a coincidence, a tick with the wiring or something. Maybe they weren't going to attack at all and he'd get off scotch free.

Or maybe they were waiting for him to let his guard down.

Sora sighed, trying to relax again, already hearing a lecture from some of his fellow loopers back home about not being so paranoid.

He'd checked on all four animatronics one more time before putting the camera down as the clock ticked 5am.

It really seemed like they weren't going to move at all. Whether this pattern would repeat for the rest of the nights, he'd have to see.

But it seemed like he could relax for the rest of the night at least. If they weren't moving at 5, it's doubtful they'd be moving at all.

He checked all the cameras again though, just to be safe.

And as if him trying to calm down a little was tempting Yggdrasil itself, the minute he put the camera down there was a slumped golden bear costume in the room, glaring at him with gaping and vacant voids for eyes.

_**~iT's mE~**_

"Agh!" Sora yelped and jumped, accidentally viewing the camera again, which he quicly swatted away.

And then it was gone.

The clock chimed 6:00.

* * *

11.1  
Yeah...um, she's new. There was a discussion over whether of not this would be canon to the Yugioh Arc-V Infinite Loops, but it was interesting enough I put it in anyways. I'll leave it up to you guys whether it's canon or not.

11.2  
Uhh...Executive meddling?

11.3  
I think the goat things a running joke, but it's been long enough that I wouldn't really know.

And I'm not going back to look through that mess of a forum page that no one had the decency to threadmark,_ thank you_!

Ahaha~...Sorry, venting again...

11.4  
A fnaf one because...well, you know what day it was when I posted this!

* * *

**Kind of a short one today, and only one snip from me cause I wanted to get this out I might have another KH one planned for Ch 12. We never did see what happened to Yuya~ though by simple process of elimination- -**

**But nevermind that, Happy Halloween everybody. And happy Dia de los muertos, or All Saints Day...and whatever else for those that don't celebrate our national candy day!**

**See you in the next one~!**


	12. Chapter 12

**A Fan:**WELl...

**Toaneo07 Ver2.0**: *Chuckle* What's with the Ver2.0? And thanks!

**Apologies for the wait! Happy New Years, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and whatever else I missed! But i've got a longer one to make up for it!**

**The last one's a bit of a doozy though.**

* * *

12.1 dragonraptyr "Hey, Guys?"

Yusei looked up from his drink. All five Anchors were gathered in a small bar in Neo Domino City. Yuya was looking uncharacteristically pensive. "Something wrong, Yuya?"

Yuya shrugged. "Maybe? My last loop was a fused one, and one of the Loopers mentioned something called the "Crash". I wanted to know more about it."

Jaden sighed, kicking his feet up on the table. "I haven't thought about that in ages." The GX Anchor admitted. "That was one messed up loop."

"What do you mean?" Yuya leaned forward.

"The Crash was an event taking place in the Mega Man loops that resulted in an entire branch of Yggdrasil being wiped out. It just didn't exist any more." Astral said calmly.

"All the Loopers were active during that following Loop. Thoth didn't have time to be long-winded like he usually was, he just said that something major had happened and he would explain more when he had the time. It was freaky." Jaden took a sip of his drink, staring at the table. "That was bad enough, but..."

"All the loopers were looping." Yugi said gravely. "Including Paradox."

Yuya paled. He'd never run into Paradox, yet, but the thought of him was terrifying. "That's...not good. At all."

"No, it isn't." Yusei admitted. "Maybe we'd best start telling the story from the beginning...

* * *

12.2

"You're not Sora." a little-kid named Riku stated bluntly to the young tomato-haired boy, sounding unmistakably disappointed which got him a firm whap on the shoulder and icy cold glare from an-also-slightly-younger-than-him girl named Kairi.

She huffed. "Jeez Riku, I know you and Sora made a plan for the next loop, but I did not come all the way over from Radiant Garden this early to hear you be so rude!"

"It's no problem" Yuya chirped amiably.

She turned and gave a smile to their guest who was taking Sora's place that loop.

"Sorry about him, it's nice to meet you. Yuya was it?" Her loop memories said.

He gave them a brilliant smile, sitting up and shaking the sand out of his hair.

"That's me. Nice to meet you too, Riku, Kairi."

Riku sighed but tried to be hospitable. Before he could say anything though, Yuya stared out at the ocean, red eyes almost blank, as if he were somewhere else.

Riku and Kairi exchanged a slightly worried glance. "Yuya?"

"Ah...sorry! I don't normally space out like that.." He said sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. "But I have a telepathic link with the other three anchors in my loop._..I can't sense Yuto though..._" The last part was muttered.

Riku and Kairi's eyes lit up in recognition. "Oh, okay!" Kairi chirped, Riku sighed in relief, as telepathic links were something they were used to. "At least you don't have to fall asleep to talk with them, Sora had that problem."

Kairi seemed to giggle at the memory, "When he does that for too long, his body ends up doing the silliest things."

Riku looked like he was stifling laughs for a moment. "Do you know who your friends are with right now?"

He stared out again, but tried to keep the other two kids in his peripheral. "Yugo seems to be with two people...Um, Aqua and Terra?"

Kairi looked happy and even Riku cracked a smile. "And Yuri's not really saying much to me, but Yugo said he's taking the place of someone named Vanitas..."

"Him?" Kairi said shocked.

_Oh yeah, and the Vanitas guy might be a villain..._ Yugo added in a little late.

"Is he a villain?" Yuya asked.

"Yes, but he hasn't been very dangerous since most of us are veteran loopers..." Riku said offhandedly, then gave Yuya a weird look. "Is Yuri a villain in your loop?"

Kairi suddenly looked worried. "And you said he's an anchor?" Janus hadn't said anything, but they should be aware of any potential MLE's.

Yuya nodded, rubbing the back of his head again. "Former villian is more accurate...and according to Yugo he took one look at the guy he was working under and left." The other two looked slightly calmer after that.

Yuya suddenly looked pensive. Yuri still saw him as a big brother figure and confided in him how much he hated that he was still considered a villain by Yggdrasil. He wanted these two people who reminded him so much of Yuzu and Gongenaka to understand his brother in all but blood.

"I can't blame him...from what Yugo's telling me, it sounds awfully like what he went through back home. See, he activated in a variant and grew to resent who he was before that."

Kairi chirped in sympathy and Riku eyes widened. "Chrysalis syndrome?" He muttered to himself. Kairi, who was next to him heard that and her eyes widened in recognition too.

"Ah, sorry. I brought the mood down... Would you guys mind telling me a bit more about this loop?"

_And there's these awesome weapons called keyblades..._

Yuya perked up at the odd familiarity of that and turned back to Riku and Kairi.

"I'm especially interested in what keyblades are."

* * *

_Pogo couldn't summon his despite taking the place of someone who could_.

_YURI!_

**_Hey guys, where's Yuto? I can't sense him anywhere in this loop..._**

_Dunno__..._

_We can't talk with him either, nor have we run into him yet. __If he is going to be awake this loop, perhaps he just isn't as of now._

Yuya sighed. That was the most reasonable conclusion to draw. Not all four of them were awake every loop, but he'd hoped...

**_Yeah, that_****_ makes sense. I'm going to play catch up with a couple of new friends here. We're in one of the more peaceful parts of the loop, so please keep me posted._**

_Of course_

_Roger that!_

* * *

"Let us welcome one of the keyblade's chosen to the Organization. Number XII, Yuxay!"

The minute he awoke he was being guided down white hallways. His loop memories...

Well aside from the alarming lack of them aside from the ones for a few minutes before he awoke, told him his name for now was Yuxay, given to him by that white haired dude after he woke up in a strange town with his mind blissfully blank.

He was asked to wait outside a large circular room where a blue haired guy drones on about hearts...and darkness. Weird.

Despite everything, Yuto... found his mind wasn't working as fast as usual, processing the little information he had slower than a sloth's pace from that one anthropomorphic animal kingdom loop. Almost as if it really were blank, or the blankness was inhibiting his thought process.

Still he knew to reflexively send out a ping as he stood in front of the circle of chairs that looked like they were too high to be practical.

A guy to his lady, with wild red and spiky hair, green eyes and strange purple triangle shaped marks was eyeing him, their gazes met, and he felt a return ping. Gently bidding his head, he saw the guy smile.

With his awareness slowly coming back to him, he then craned his neck to the first man his loop memories showed him.

Xemnas.

He was ushered out of the room, when heard a clamor in his head.

**_Yuto?! YUTO!_** Came the cheerful and relieved voice of Yuya. He couldn't help but smile at the ever-present optimism of who he largely considered his closest confidant and best friend among the loops.

**_Hello Yuya. What did I miss?_**

**_Oh...not much..._**

_On the contrary, you've got quite a bit of catching up to do. Yuya's a bit busy at the moment, but I'll be waiting for you outside to explain._

"Oh no, is his replacement a zombie too?" The spiky-haired redhead looper chimed jokingly next to him.

Yuto offered him a small smirk. It wasn't much compared to Yuya's radiant smile, but he'd been practicing.

"Sorry about that. The name is Yuto. I'm one four anchors for the Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V branch."

The redhead shook his hand. "The name's Axel. Got it memorized?"

Yuto smirked again, cheek bones already starting to hurt, and nodded.

"So Yu-Gi-Oh, huh? That's one of the...card game ones, right?"

Yuto couldn't help but roll his eyes. "I see the reputation of those loops precedes us."

Axel chuckled. "Sounds like you guys just sit on your bums playing card games all day. Well, if you wanna get through this loop, you'll likely end up going through some traumatizing stuff- -"

* * *

\- -_Everything__ disappearing into the abyss_

...he suspected he wasn't supposed to be seeing this, but there it was.

_Yuya was standing onto the desolate beach, strange weapon in hand and dueldisk nowhere in sight as he slashed a large shadowy creature and the area was torn to shreds around him- -_

* * *

The scene that was different and yet so-SO familiar in the most horrible way because it was **_Yuya_** of all people in the middle of it, ricocheted off Yuto's brain.

It would appear he wasn't as recovered as he thought.

A familiar yet muted sense of fury started building, so he brutally socked Axel in the gut, causing him to double over.

"Don't _ever_ assume it was a walk in the park."

He turned smouldering but quickly dulling gray eyes to a shocked and unexpecting Axel.

"Never insinuate any of our loops are _easy_. Because they're _far_ from that." He hissed with a deadly calm demeanor

Axel's eyes were wide, and he shakily smiled while pointing fingers guns at Yuxay.

"Never say the card game loops are easy...gotcha." Yuto nodded.

"Ah...hah...okay then! Let's move away from the doom and gloom and start showing you around, eh Yuxay?"

"...Yuto."

"Right...Yuto! I'll get it memorized." And he tapped his head, the smile returning to his face.

"Anyway, it's my job to show you how to use that Keyblade of yours."

Yuto remembered what he heard when he walked into the circle-chair room."I heard that blue haired man say something about being the keyblade's chosen..."

"Yeah, well, that's actually a lie."

Yuto's eyebrows crinkled.

_They're not rare at all! I have one, and so does Yuya, and so does Pogo..._

_YUGO you bastard!_

**_Hello Yugo._**

_Oh, hey Yuto. I don't have time to talk, I'm busy helping Yuya at the moment._

_Yes, well get back to it Slow-go._

_FOR THE LAST TIME IT'S- -_

_**Didn't you just say y****ou should be helping Yuya..?**_

_OH, right! We'll talk more later!_

_..._

**_You really should stop teasing him one of these loops. His yelling is going to make us all go deaf someday._**

_I know, but his reaction is **always** priceless..._

Yuto cracked a smile **_That it is..._**

"Hey, are you in there?"

Yuto blinked, focusing back on Axel.

"Look, I meant it as a joke earlier when I compared you to a zombie, see the person you're replacing this loop, my good buddy Roxas, could barely speak the first day he joined the organization. He was, y'know as my teasing suggested, like a zombie. Heck still is on the rare occasions he's not looping..."

"Well, I apologize for spacing out in advance. I have a telepathic link with the other three anchors- -"

"Just like him with Sora and Ven! Wow, who'd have thought. I haven't met the other visiting loopers, but I bet you they fit the people they're replacing pretty well."

Yuto nodded with another smirk. "Yes, Yggdrasil _loves_ it's irony."

"Well, I'll stop bugging ya. I'm sure you have stuff you wanna go and do, I've seen you eyeing that door.

Just be sure to get some rest, you've got missions starting tomorrow. And then I'll take you out for ice-cream afterwards. Got it memorized?"

Yuto nodded and gave a genuine smile at the offer. "That sounds great. Thanks Axel."

"No problem. Welcome to the Kingdom Hearts loop, Yuto.

* * *

12.3 krspaceT

"I activate the Miracle Synchro Fusion magic card!" Kaiba shouted at his latest foe, Alexis Rhodes, who looked undeterred "I banish my Naturia Leodrake and Versago the Destroyer from the card graveyard to Fusion Summon! Knight of the Earth, shatter all effects before you! Take Flight, Gaia Drake, the Universal Force!"

The winged, armored knight rose up from a spiraling vortex in the ground, spreading it wings and pointing its spear at Alexis (3500, 2800).

Kaiba grinned (LP: 2400) "This card cannot be targeted or destroyed by any monster effects."

Alexis rose an eyebrow "It looks like one of Yugi's monsters".

"That isn't relevant!" Kaiba shouted as he pointed at Alexis's field, where she controlled Blue Flame Swordsman (1800, 1600), Harpie Queen (1900, 1200), T.G Wonder Magician (1900, 0), Scrap Dragon (2800, 2000), and Cyber Blader (2100, 800) "Now Gaia Drake, destroy Blue Flame Swordsman!"

Flying right at the warrior, the monster attempted to defend itself with a sword swipe, only for the sword to be pierced right through by Gaia Drake and shattered.

As pieces of the monster went everywhere, Alexis was pushed back (5200- 3500), but looked defiant "Wrong call Kaiba! When a Blue Flame Swordsman is destroyed, I can special summon the regular version from my extra deck!" the regular red swordsman appeared on Alexis's field in a fiery tornado (1800, 1600). But Kaiba wasn't done yet.

"Yeah yeah, you get Wheeler ace 1.0, it's not going to matter. In fact, I'll make sure to destroy that thing just to make my victory all that better! I now activate the quick play spell card Super Polymerization!"

Alexis now looked a little bothered as the field around the two began to spiral.

"With this card, by discarding a card from my hand!" Kaiba sent a Necro Gardna to the grave "I can combine monsters on either of our fields together! I'm thinking your Cyber Blader and your Scrap Dragon!"

Alexis looked bothered as Cyber Blader was sucked into the maelstrom with Scrap Dragon "Hey! That's my favorite card! How would you like it if someone took your Blue-Eyes like that".

"I'd stop them first" Kaiba asserted. Now, the Dragon of evolution meets the warrior of the past! Become a path of power and growth to the future and the past! Fusion Summon, become the perfect Paradox, Dragon Knight Draco-Equiste!"

* * *

12.4 [Snowboard Kids 2/ Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V]

"A snowboard just isn't as cool as a D-wheel..." Yugo pouted, inspecting his standard-looking blue board while sitting in the snow. Yuya absentmindedly pat his shoulder, pressing the left arrow button and changing into a winter outfit.

"Now, since the X-course has so many jumps, I recommend the feather board." The cute blonde girl said. "Just use the selection options to pick different board categories, and it'll be under 'special'"

Yuya duly flipped through the boards they had the option to choose, sliding his fingers over "special" and eventually finding the feather board.

He inspected it, noting how light it was, dropped it on the ground with a soft *whump, and jumped on.

He was able to balance all of two seconds before slipping on a patch of ice underneath.

The second local looper, a kid with spiky black hair sighed and facepalmed while the blonde girl helped him up, Yugo chuckling in the background.

"Don't worry, it's normal for new loopers to need to get used to snowboarding..."

Yugo huffed. "Yeah, well what if I want to ride my D-wheel?!" And then there was a motorcycle in a snowdrift.

Yuya's eyebrows crinkled slightly. "Will that even work with all the snow and ice Yugo?"

His banana haired counterpart nodded looking eager. "It sure will! Me and Yusei made some adjustments! This baby'll ride in just about anything!"

"Put that away!" The spiky-haired kid demanded.

"Oh yeah? Or what?"

The spiky haired kid pulled out a really large rocket and strapped it to the back of his snowboard. "If you get out-of-loop items, so do we."

The blonde girl looked slightly sheepish. "And if you two can't beat us, you don't get to move on to the next course. That's where you'll be meeting up with your friends."

Yuya sighed at his banana-banged counterpart. "Put the D-wheel away and let's just get this over with Yugo."

Scowling, Yugo reluctantly put his D-wheel away, the spiky haired kid looked smug.

"Alright you sorry excuses for snowboarders, I'm Slash and this is Nancy. We're gonna whip you into shape! Get on your boards and let's race down the mountain! Get you two some hands on experience!"

Yuya sighed but complied. Getting on the snowboard and managing to push off without falling due to his sense of balance.

He just needed to learn how to handle ice patches and he'd mostly be good.

_As far as punishment loops go_(And after the..._explosive_ end the last loop had, he was assuming this was their punishment loop)_...this isn't too bad... _He admitted to himself. It wasn't even a full null loop, they had partial access to their subspace pockets after all. Still...

_Yugo...why did you let Roget blow up all of Academia while we were STILL IN IT?_

His banana-banged counterpart blushed slightly, mentally muttering an apology before getting on his snowboard and following him and the other two kids down the beginning of the course.

* * *

12.5 [Arc-V]/[Magical Passcode 1111]

Are you familiar with...magicians?

They are mysterious people who harbor Magi in their minds,  
and extract their magical power for their own use.

You've never heard of them? Well then!  
Let me tell you the tale of the magicians and the Demon Lord!

Once upon a time, the magicians were utterly destroyed by their sworn enemy.

No, no! That's not the whole story! Please, just relax.

Only two magicians in the entire world survived  
The magician Anglad and his disciple Yuya.  
They lived deep in a forest, far away from mankind.

* * *

He awoke in a pretty comfortable bed  
which was odd, all things considered, since he usually awoke sitting, standing, or mid-stride.

And he was wearing these weird robes, but those were apparently normal for a magician's apprentice.

_"Well..here we go again Lenya- -"_

He suddenly came face to face with a light pinkish-haired, fluffy, feathered... goat...spirit...thing... Who stared at him with shocked red eyes.

"_Where's Spellenya?!_" The goat thing cried.  
"_And who are..._" The goat thing...Meteo, his magi, whatever that is apparently, paused, eyes drifting upwards as if in thought and his eyebrows furrowed. _"Yuya...?"_

He smiled gently and gave a thumbs up to try to put him at ease. "_I...how do I know that? I've NEVER seen you before..."_

He rubbed the back of his neck "Right...well it's a bit of a long explanation..."

_"And where's Spellenya!? That boy's useless without us!"_

Yuya sighed. So these guys had probably just started looping, or at least hadn't encountered any other fused loops.

"Alright...How much time do we have? I'll explain."

* * *

"Ugh...Meteo? You look...different..."

Yuto eyed the new...male in front of him with bobbed white hair striped black the entirety of the left side, and glimmering yet questioning amber eyes.

"_Whoever this 'Meteo' is, I can assure you I'm not them..._"

Spellenya snorted, yet gave him another once over. "Now that you mention it...he probably would have said something really snarky by now." Spellenya stretched out, and Yuto noted the lack of freaking out...for now.

Spellenya yawned, shaking off the sleepiness. "Well then...who...

...

...Oh my Demon Lord... WHERE'S METEO!" he frantically looked around _Hellfire? Euphoria? Tsunami?_

A list of about 10 names rang in his head. Yuto figured he wouldn't mention that he could hear Spellenya's projected thoughts just yet.

Yuto placatingly put his hands up, "_Hey..just calm down and I'll explain...see there's this big tree-computer called Yggdrasil..."_

* * *

Yuya couldn't help but think of his Master's reacton to the note Meteo had them leave before heading out.

* * *

"Spellenya It's time to get up! I have a special task...

What's this?"

_Off to conquer the world!  
-Spellenya_

He came out of his musings in time to hear Meteo say:

_"...Me and the other magi figured there was something really weird going on...See, Epoch's powers are time-based and he sensed some sort of shift in space time...then there was one of those resets that had us all as regular magicians and the war hadn't happened._"

"That reminds me..." Yuya quietly asked as he shot magic at another rock monster...demon thing. "What are magi?"

"_Couldn't be helped..._" Meteo sighed and explained the concept to him. _"We're the lingering emotions and magic of a magician that dies, and while rogue, we're not unlike the demons you've been fighting. Except we can join up with another magician, regain sentience and help them out."_

As if to demonstrate that, Yuya pulled on the well of power Meteo offered him, shooting another monster down with a comet-like attack.

"Got it...and are there are other magi that you and Spellenya are particularly close to, that may also be looping so I can go get them?"

_"Yes, in fact you're approaching one of the magisafes now."_

He hopped out from between a couple of bushes to find a young girl, no older than him wearing red and with straight black hair. She whirled around, startled, and ran off.

"Ah, wait!" He cried, but she didn't stop.

"Who was that?" He asked, but Meteo just pointed to a shiny object on the ground she had dropped, a rare smile on his face.

*Please input your 4-digit passcode* The magisafe, despite being an inanimate object, chimed.

He looked to Meteo who looked like he was trying not to laugh. _"Just punch something in."_

Four numbers.

"Uh...1111?"

He'd said it as a joke.

Meteo chuckled amusingly and murmured, "_Good luck, you're gonna need it..._"

And what he got out of it was a large crowned phoenix monster bearing down on him. It started spewing fire everywhere, of which he just manged to avoid.  
Can't say the same for the plants since they were in the middle of a forest..

Yuya pulled on Meteo's magic and shot comets at the phoenix, which barely seemed to slow it down.

He had just avoided being set on fire for the umpteenth time, by a mere inch when he muttered, "Hey Meteo, I'm about to show you something else regarding the loops."

"_Oh? And what's that?"_

He smirked, catching sight of the girl in the corner of his eye, hiding behind some trees on the edge of the battlefield.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" He called enthusiastically, holding back a chuckle to see the girl's and Meteo's eyes widen in confusion as he reached into his subspace pocket.  
Even the Phoenix had stopped as he pulled out his duel disk.

"In a moment, I am going to make this huge phoenix, and all this fire around us _disappear_~!" He let some stars fly out from his hands for effect.

_"Won't Hellfire like that..._" Meteo muttered.

In a flash his dueldisk opened and he had a card in his hand which he slammed down on the blade.

"Make way for the star of the show, Performapal Guitartle!

In a flash of light a blue top-hat and bowtie wearing turtle, with it's stomach and tail being a guitar popped out, smiling at the girl who gasped loudly. If they didn't already know she was there, they would have now.

And in an instant the monster squirted water all over the clearing, putting out any lingering fires(which started to die out moments after catching anyhow)

The phoenix, while still alive, was now soaked and didn't seem to be able to spew fire anymore. Yuya took the opportunity to strike it down with a full power Meteor attack.

He looked over to Meteo who's jaw had dropped, red eyes widened before composing himself.

"_Well...not bad, Yuya._"

"_Agh I feel all fuzzy...Hey Meteo! We doin' this again?_"

"_Well Hellfire- -_"

"_Wait, WAIT!_" A kid on the younger side with bright red hair, green eyes and wearing regal-looking clothing that was just a little too big floated in front of Yuya, examining him.

"_Who the heck is this?"_

Meteo sighed. "_Well..that's what I was trying to tell you Hellfire. This is..._"

"_...Yuya right? Well, nice to meetcha! Now let's go find Epoch, and Euphoria, and Tornado, and Nemesis, and Decay, and Osmosis, and Void..."_

"_What about Tsunami?_" Meteo asked with a barely concealed smirk.

"_Ugh...what about her?_"

"Excuse me guys, but can you stop talking for a minute?_"_

"Hello?" The girl hesitantly chimed. "Are you a magician?"

"Maybe~" Yuya said with a smile, rubbing the back of his head.

She took that as a yes.

"That was so amazing! I've never seen anything like that!

* * *

12.5 Lermis ****[VRAINS Activation loop] ****(This one's gonna be a doozy. You have been warned.)

"You didn't… plan this."

"…"

"Did you?"

"No."

"…"

"It'd be… I dunno."

"Can't you see it?"

_Wrong. All wrong. It wasn't possible._

_First: According to his memory, he was not physically in this location._

_Second: He had made no plans or arrangements to arrive at this location._

_Third: There were elements in this location that no longer existed._

"… I don't want to."

That wasn't a yes. But it also wasn't a no.

"… I want to believe you but… but…"

"Come on, Yusaku. You can come up with _something_."

_First: This platform had disappeared approximately four months prior to the last events he remembered._

_Second: This platform evidently had the AI Roboppy downloaded to it._

_Third: Roboppi had been deleted._

_Roboppi had been _

deleted.

"Do you want me to start with the reasons why I _should_ or why I should _not_? What's going on here, Ai!?"

Behind them the sun was setting. There was a slight breeze. An ordinary breeze. No data to read here. Nothing to reach out for.

"Are you sure we should continue this here? SOL Technologies should be starting their scan in a few hours."

Yusaku was hearing the words. He heard the way they were spoken, which words he chose. It wasn't the Ai he first met. It wasn't that Ai at _all_.

Because these words… the way he talked, there was screams and the wrong smiles and tears _and he was alone again in that room it was full but empty it was blank and that stare those eyes were EVERYWHERE but he called out and the boy DID NOT ANSWER and why did he-_

"YUSAKU!"

He couldn't breathe.

"Yusaku, calm down. Deep breaths, come on… Three, right? In, one two three, out, one two three… Come on, Yusaku, stay with me."

Three. Yeah, three. Always.

In.

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

Out.

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

In…

He didn't know how long he was standing there. He regained feeling of his limbs but it was slow.

The sun was still setting.

"Are you okay, Yusaku?" Ai was right there before him, much closer than before.

"Y-yeah. I'm fine." No he wasn't.

"No, you're not." Of course he wouldn't be able to lie to Ai. "They were never _this_ bad before."

"Ai…" Yusaku didn't even know where to _start_. Because it was true. It wasn't bad as of late. In fact, he hadn't blacked out like that in a _long_ time.

_Roboppi was here. It… he, they, had been deleted. Yusaku was right there._

_Yet here they were, with Roboppi greeting him in the same hour as always, calling him "master" like they always did. Normally, Yusaku took comfort in routine._

_Except that he no longer had a routine._

_And Roboppi was _

not supposed to be here.

_He had to know more. He had to make sense of this._

_"Roboppi…"_

_"Yes, Master?"_

_He choked. He swallowed. "What is the last thing you remember?"_

_"Roboppi woke up Master at 06:45."_

_Yeah, they had. As always. "And before that?"_

_"Master went to sleep at 04:53."_

_04:53. He used to do that every day – if he managed to get any sleep to begin with. He was trying to drop that habit._

_He was succeeding too._

_In fact, he knew he had managed to sleep before two o'clock last night._

_"Roboppi… What is the date?"_

_They answered._

_First: Roboppi had no recollection of past events._

_Second: Roboppi had reported past sleeping habits that had since been dropped._

_Third: The date was **wrong.**_

"Ai, I believe you. You wouldn't do this. Not after… everything. But- _how_?"

"You're wondering if this is a simulation."

Yusaku nodded. Damnit, why was it so hard to _talk!?_

Actually, he knew exactly why. Years of therapy had explained it to detail. He had a name to put on it.

_It wasn't helping_.

"From what I can tell, it's not a simulation at all. That's just plain old Link VRAINS. Right before the whole mess with the Knights of Hanoi went down."

Ai was no longer looking at him. Instead, he was gazing at the horizon. The old landscape of Link VRAINS was not nostalgic, exactly. At this point, Yusaku was just doing a job, feeling nothing but anger, converting it to the fuel he needed so he could keep standing up.

"I called Kusanagi-san this morning."

Ai's neutral expression fell. "His brother, right?"

"I didn't ask about him. I concluded that if Jin did – _anything_, he'd tell me." He swallowed. "Jin wasn't there."

"So we're back at the beginning, huh? I guess that's eternity."

He felt that one. It hurt. Like a punch through his chest, knocking his breath out of him. Again.

_One, two, three… One, two, three…_

"Is that what you wanted!?"

"H-Huh?"

"To have me with you? If you can't do this by yourself, you drag me with you? I can't DO that, Ai! I _told_ you! I can't leave everything else behind and now it's all been reset!"

"You're accusing me of _time travel_?"

"No! This is a simulation! It has to be!"

"But I can't do that, Yusaku, not to you, I _couldn't_ do that, I was DEAD!"

"Then what IS this!?"

Because it _couldn't_ be time travel. It couldn't be a dream. If it was a simulation, he could escape it. He could fight his way out of it. He could hack it and he could go back where they managed to get a happy ending, a closure for everything.

But Yusaku couldn't escape his own mind.

And he had no idea how to begin escaping an impossibility.

_Yusaku had discovered a long time ago that all those who claimed that you could feel no pain in dreams were wrong. Dead wrong._

_He wished they were right._

_He could feel everything in his dreams. The knots in his stomach. The hunger. The buzzing of that electronic voice in his ear. The weight of the equipment on his head. The _

shocks_._

_The shocks always woke him up._

_Maybe those people being wrong was a good thing. Because otherwise, Yusaku wasn't so sure that he could wake up._

_He checked the time. Then he called Kusanagi-san._

"Yusaku. I would never do that to you. After our duel, I…"

Now Ai was the one at a loss for words. He was holding onto Yusaku's shoulders like he was an anchor in a vast ocean of data, and he was threatened to be torn by the torrent.

"I was _fine_ with the way things ended. I was happy. Me and the other Ignis… We had you. All of you. You would remember us, and I didn't have to face eternity, so…" He chuckled, but it was forced. "I'm a coward, aren't I? That's what I get for trying to run away. I'm sorry you got dragged in this, Yusaku."

"Ai…"

"I love you. I told you that. I wouldn't tear your bonds away from you. I won't do that, ever again."

_First: Roboppi was present._

_Second: Jin was not present, and Kusanagi-san gave no indication of realizing there was a change in his previous situation._

_Third: The date was wrong._

_Conclusions:_

_First: People close to him had been reverted to their state prior to meeting Ai and bore no memory of their struggles together._

_Second: Events had been erased up to the same date._

_Third: He was TRAPPED and NOBODY KNEW._

"Was it all for nothing? Ai?" Because all his bonds had been erased. His friends were now strangers. Everything they ever fought for was gone and forgotten. Because he had moved his time, pushed it and pushed himself as far as he could and _it snapped back exactly where he started._

"No. We still have our bond, right? I'll be your partner, so you can keep me strong enough to continue. Alright?"

"…"

"…Yusaku?"

"…Yeah. Let's do this."

* * *

12.1: The Crash is an important part of the infinite loops. If you wanna know the details, we can talk over a PM.  
Or you can just look it up, there's probably an article or two about it somewhere.

12.2: The original part with Yuto and Axel was a bit more angsty. I don't think I edited it on the spacebattles forum, so it should still be there.

12.3: It's one of the shuffle duels! I do believe the last one was the finale, but I'll have to go check...

12.4: Old N64 games because why the hell not! I have one of those things at my grandma's house, and me and my sister went at it with Snowboard kids after I watched her clear the Great Deku tree in Ocarina of Time with this old tips and tricks manual we found.

I won on the first few courses...and then we started doing the harder ones. At that point the computer controlled-skaters kept beating us...

12.5: The magisafe thing is why it's called Magical Passcode 1111.  
It's a running joke, but there's actually an in-game reason for it...

**Go play it BTW, it's a lot of fun!**

12.6: Yup. Angsty. Though it kind of had to be because of the way VRAINS ended.

At east there were no further complications...but Yusaku and Ai are not going to be in a good place mentally for awhile...

GET THESE BOYS A THERAPY LOOP!

* * *

**Okay so...if there is a next one, it will probably focus more on the other characters aside from the Yu-boys, and maybe an entry or two from Gx or something because that's the only other one I'm familiar with. And that's through the dub so...not too good on S4.**

**With any luck, someone else on the SB forums won't mind helping out and we'll have another VRAINS one or a snip for one of the other series'.**

**Well, I will hopefully see you guys in the next one.**


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